The Joe Rogan Experience - #933 - Julie Kedzie

Episode Date: March 16, 2017

Julie Kedzie is a retired mixed martial artist, and is currently doing commentary for Invicta Fighting Championships.

three you started three two tricky and we're live how are you Julie I'm doing well what's happening we were just talking before this podcast started you're working on your master's in non-fiction creative writing creative non-fiction yeah what is creative non-fiction creative writing. Creative non-fiction, yeah. What is creative non-fiction? How does that work? It's actually very encompassing of a lot of things. Think about like memoir or biography, essays especially. We're a bunch of essayists.

We're a bunch of nerds. They pick about, I think, nine or ten of us out of a group of 150 for this program, and then we write a ton of essays and we read so much. It's insane. It's amazing how many female MMA fighters, not that this is a knock against male MMA fighters are like really fucking smart.

Like Rosie Sexton. Oh yeah. You know, uh, there's like, there's a ton of them. You can go down the list. Yeah. Peggy Morgan. She's got a really intelligent female fighters. I think that, um, I think there's something with MMA and creativity.

And I think whereas, because the opportunities maybe haven't been out there for women as much, when it comes to like, I guess, finding an avenue for that creativity, they're, you know, they go into other things like academics and arts, and then they find MMA, and then they try to do both. I wonder if it's that, I mean, I think there's probably a bunch of reasons. Roxanne Matafari, that's another one. She's super smart. I always wonder if it's like maybe it's such an odd thing,

especially when you started. I mean, you were a real pioneer in a lot of ways. I mean, you fought Gina Carano in 2007, 10 years ago. Yeah, that was a long time ago. It's crazy when you think about it. MMA was like non-existent in the public sphere back then. It just wasn't something that people talked about for women. But the women that did get into it and reached like a professional level, they had to be like extremely daring.

I mean, it's a kind of a crazy occupation. It is. And I think that those of us who started back then, of course, I'm not knocking the people who are doing it now because there are tremendous athletes and the women going into it now, but the environment was such that you had to be really obsessive. And I'm sure that many other female athletes at this time have that kind of obsessive streak. But I think at that time, because we, I mean, you'd scour the internet, like the MMA underground, I was always looking for fights. I was always trying to find somebody to fight me or the Sherdog forums, all that stuff.

Before it got kind of... Troll-y? Yeah, exactly. No, it was like, who wants to fight me? Who wants to fight me? And somebody would say, I want to fight you. Yes, thank you. I'm so grateful.

It was a weird atmosphere back then. Yeah, well, it was people doing it just for the pure passion of it. Yeah. I got to talk to Jeremy Horn about this. Jeremy, I think, has had 150 pro fights, something crazy like that. Yeah. No, my, yeah, my very first fight, they videotaped me. It was for Jeff Osborne in Hook and Shoot. And they videotaped me and they said, what do you want to do with this? And I was like, oh, I'm going to be in the UFC. And that was 2004.

And, you know, everybody laughed at me. And I was like, no, I'm going to be in the UFC. Just watch me. I actually can't believe I did. But, I mean, I can believe. That was my goal. That's what, you know, that's what I did. I didn't do well in the UFC, but I got there.

You know, check that one off. But, you know, it wasn't about being that superstar. It was about where you would get to fight. You know, what you would get to do. And I don't know. Just getting to fight was such a pleasure. You know, I have a fight. The excitement you would have.

Like, I have a fight. Oh, my God, this is great. That's a crazy feeling to try to explain to someone that has never done anything remotely as dangerous as competing in mma you know try to explain that to someone like if you were talking to some woman who's a doctor or a professor or a just normal job you know that's those aren't the most normal jobs but you know i'm just saying if you were trying to explain to someone what you want to fight, like you want, you're looking forward

to something that's going to make you terribly nervous. You're probably going to want to throw up right before you go out there. You're going to be freaking out. And then finally you're going to be in there doing it. Yeah. And it's, yeah,

I mean, it's really, it's difficult to explain. I guess maybe ultra marathon runners or somebody of that kind of different sphere of, of expression would maybe understand it. What you want to run a hundred miles in the desert or whatever. You know, I think that there's, there's an extremism in a lot of people that, um, lays pretty dormant, but when

you get into it, when you find an avenue for it and you get to, it becomes so addictive and you just want to keep doing it. You can't stop doing it. Do you also kind of take comfort in the fact there's just a few of you out there like that? Because I've been really getting it. This is a really strange thing to get obsessed with because I'm not really going to do it, but I'm obsessed with these people that hike across the country. Do you know what I'm talking about? You know, the Appalachian trail. Yeah. I'm having this guy on who has completed the Appalachian trail and I'm just, I just obsessed with these people. They cut their toothbrushes in half to save weight.

Like, they wear one piece of clothing for, like, six months. Like, it's nuts. They bring water filters so they can find creeks and drink out of water. And these are educated people, college degrees, and they just want to see if they can walk from Georgia to Maine. and they just want to see if they can walk from Georgia to Maine. I think everybody has that in them to a certain extent, where they just have to push themselves in some direction. Although, you know, when it comes to those long hikes, I've also heard from people who have failed at the Appalachian Trail.

You know, after a certain point, you're just putting one foot in front of the other. Yeah. And it doesn't mean anything anymore. Right. So I think that there's also that sense of burnout. But those people with that drive to do something, well, passion, I think, is the perfect word for it. That just want to push beyond what they know into a different sphere. The problem is it does become addictive and your body or your mind can't always keep up with it. addicted to things where it overwhelms them. It becomes all consuming,

you know? So you're all consuming thing is trying to run. You did a hundred miles. Now you got to run 200 miles. Yeah, exactly. You have to be faster this time. Yeah. Now you got to win.

Like it's, it's a strange compulsion to push yourself to almost like experience yourself. It's almost like regular life in its placid vibration is frustrating. It's just there's not enough. There's not enough tension. There's not enough excitement. There's not enough. You need like.

I mean, that's how we settle the new world, right? That's how. Yeah. I mean, that's how mountains are climbed, are summited. That's how we get to space is because you just there's something in human nature that's so precious that you just have to keep pushing. It's a collective feeling, but then, you know, there's some individuals out there who just stand a little bit apart or just in maybe a different playground. And they just want to keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And they want to be the ones.

And that's how we achieve. The thing about MMA, though, it's like you have to, I guess, balance that pushing with preserving your physical health, especially someone as smart as you. It's got to be an interesting sort of an act, a balancing act, because you're. Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me for talking. No, please go ahead. I always get all excited and talk.

No, I my body's a wreck now. Like, I'm there's no way I could ever compete in MMA again. What's going on? Oh, my body's a wreck now. There's no way I could ever compete in MMA again. What's going on? Oh, my neck is out. I had shoulder surgery in 2012, and something happened with my neck, and it never healed correctly. What is it? Do you know? No, I've never.

It just feels weird? I hate getting MRIs. Do you? I hate all of it. Why? I don't like being in a tube like that. It makes me really nervous. So you just...

Yeah, so I just deal with it. I mean, just massage and stuff. But my knees are pretty bad. I get sciatica. I understand that I don't. I retired kind of young, I guess. But I understood that it was the time I needed to because things were not going to function in my body on the level that they needed to. And my mind wasn't in a place where it would push beyond that.

Well, you competed professionally for, what, 10 years, more? Yeah, nine years. Nine years? Yeah. I mean, I've been doing martial arts since I was four. So that's a lot of years. That's a lot of years. That's a lot of years.

That's 32 years. But, you know, like actually competing, like I knew that that wasn't giving me, I knew it at my last fight. Like before I walked out there, I told Greg Jackson, I said, this is it, I'm done. And he was like, okay. And I was like, is he going to try? Right before you went out went out there oh i was so sick i thought yeah i had food poisoning it was weird it was when i fought betch gohea and um um anyway in australia is that about betch a little bit a little bit a little bit you know there's always that you always have that thing where i won that fight come on right throw me a bone i won that fight and stop wiggling your butt

but you know she does her know, she does her thing. Whatever. She does her thing. She's been very successful with the Betch brand. But, no, I had food poisoning. I don't know. Back then, you know, you still had to do IVs and stuff. So I had IVs and I thought they worked well.

And I think I ate something wrong or something weird. But I woke up the next day. Well, I have a history of shitting myself a lot. I don't know. During fights? Well, yes, that has happened. Yes. That's what I of a lot of shitting myself a lot. I don't know. During fights? Well, yes, that has happened. Yes. That's what I'm known for is shitting myself in Russia. Oh, boy. Yeah, it was a good one. Right in front of Putin.

Really? You shit yourself in front of Putin? Well, okay. I'll backtrack to that story. Okay. Because it's my favorite. It's your favorite? It's my MMA story story. Yeah. No, it was my first fight under Greg Jackson. It was in 2007. It was after the Carano fight. And I'd met him at that fight.

He and Joey Villasenor and Keith Jardine and some of these people, and they were really kind to me. And I had another fight in St. Petersburg with Bodog a couple months later, and my corner man couldn't make it. I was in Indiana at the time. Was that the undercard of Fedor and Matt Linlin? Yes. Yes, yeah.

So I called up this nice guy. I didn't know he was famous. All I cared about was women competing in the sport. I didn't care about the guys very much. You know, I liked Tough was interesting, but it really didn't do anything for me. I would watch fights if I could, but I couldn't afford paperbacks. Couldn't relate either, right? Yeah.

I was like, well, they're not letting me in that show. But Bodog did, you know, these other shows that were, you know, internet based. show but Bodog did you know these other shows that were you know internet based and um I call up this nice guy Greg Jackson and I'm just like hey uh would you be interested in cornering me for a fight and he's like well why don't you come here and train and I was like oh one of those and it turned out no he's this really nice guy who gave me a job and a place to live when I moved there but um no but um so I I drove out to Albuquerque and I was there for three days and I realized I was never going to leave. Like, this is it.

This is my team. This is my home. Like, left everything behind me. Wow. Which wasn't maybe very nice to my boyfriend. But, you know. Well, there's other boyfriends. Yeah.

I mean, it was my fight career. Like, that's what counted. Where were you living? Indiana. Yeah. Just outside of Indianapolis. Indiana, Albuquerque's a, like, if you have family, it's not like you're moving to some, like, boulder. Or you're looking at the Rocky Mountains or something.

Yeah, I mean, there are beautiful mountains, but no, it's not a, maybe, pleasure destination, Albuquerque. Without the Jackson camp there, it's a little odd. It would have been a difficult move without the Jackson camp there, for sure. Yeah, you know, the crack needles everywhere. He's done a great job of fostering, like, this amazing sense of community, though. Yeah. Yeah, he really has. Him and Michael Winklejohn.

Yeah, they're tremendous men. Like, I feel like I did a lot of great stuff in my life. Like, I'm proud of the things I've done. But I think that I was also surrounded by people who really guided me well. Who really, like, you know,, like going back to school and stuff like that after my career, you know, these are, this is the influences of people who were just like, they care about the people on their team. They care about who they surround themselves with. But I didn't know any of that. I just kind of showed up. And first, you know, I drive to the

gym and Greg says, Oh, follow me back to my place. And immediately I back into the dumpster at the gym. I'm a total klutz. Um, but no, he came out to Russia with me for that fight. And I wanted to impress him because I didn't realize till I was in that gym. I was just like, Oh, this is going to be like my sensei. Like this is the this is like, I feel like a samurai. And this is like the person I want to I forgot what that relationship is called. This is the person I really want to lead me and guide me. He's my leader. And I wanted to impress him so badly. And that fight, first thing she does right away was against Yulia Berezakovich. First thing she does, punch me in the nose, just shatters my nose, blood everywhere. I was like, great, this is again. And it was right after the Karano fight. So I was like, I was used to losing,

which, and you never want to get in that space of being used to losing. But somehow I clicked. And, you know, I did pretty well in the fight, and I ended up getting a mounted triangle on her and finishing with strikes. In between rounds, another corner man put cold water on the back of my neck, and I thought that I just farted. I thought it was a fart, but... Turns out, and this poor girl mounted triangle, no less. That's how I finished the fight. This poor girl.

I had no idea of this. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so they grab us. They put us us on this bus i'm still in my fight clothes i still blood couldn't let my gloves on and they just put us on a bus separate me and amanda buckner from our corner men and everything because we'd won our fights and they take us to this palace and um i cannot remember whose palace alexander something like it was in saint petersburg and it was beautiful gold damask and silk and just i'm in fight clothes and i'm like what is that smell and it was beautiful, gold damask and silk. And just, I'm in fight clothes. And I'm like, what is that smell? And I was like, I'd seen a guy puking backstage because, you know, because of a headshot.

And I was like, I must have like rolled in it or stepped in it. I smell so bad. And Jean-Claude Van Damme randomly walks up to us. I mean, it was just like, you know, Fedor's here, Jean-Claude Van Damme, this and that. Like just weird and surreal, already head trauma going on with me, like not really in my right mind. Right. And I just, it was so weird to be like smelling myself and being like, God, I stepped in puke. I'm sorry, Mr. Van Damme, like that I smell so badly.

That's so crazy too, because you got punched in the nose. If you smelled it through your nose, when your nose is fucked up. It was bad. I remember being on the bus and looking around going does anybody have any perfume or anything and other people were allowed to shower but i was i was a swing bat right so i was right after fader so it was just like put you on a bus didn't tell me where i was going and that's a good way to get staff no kidding it was really gross i've been lucky with staff but yeah so we i end up you know going to the restroom

looking there's shit caked all over. Everywhere. And I'm like, how did I shit myself? And it was like, it must have been in between rounds. This is disgusting. It's like, there's no trash can. It's like silk and gold and this beautiful palace and stuff. So I just take my panties off and just roll them up and shove them behind the toilet.

I know. Seriously. Black lace thong. Vladimir Putin. That was mine. I want it back. No, mine. I want it back. No, I don't want it back. It's gross.

It was, you know, in 2000. It was 10 years ago. That's crap. Wow. Yeah. So, and then I just go back out there and it's like Berlusconi was like hitting on me and like trying to pick me up. And he's like, hey, can I be your boyfriend tonight?

And I'm just like, what? But he's saying it through a translator. So it was so, and I'm like, I smell like shit. Like I was as cleaned up as I could be. I was like, you are a dirty motherfucker. And Putin comes, you know, puts his arm around me. And I'm just like, this is weird as hell. And that was it. And I was just like, I shit myself in front of foreign dignitaries in another country. And that was, that's probably my favorite MMA story. How surreal was it to meet Putin? I had no idea at the time, like what a big deal,

but that's usually, I stumble into things without knowing, which is probably best because I'm a very nervous person. Like I'm a very intense person. And so being there and just having had the fight, I don't know. Like when I think about it, I'm just like, I'm sorry, Donald Trump, your hooker's pissing on you thing, I beat you. Sorry, dude. It's been done and it's been done better. There you are. Look at that. That's hilarious.

That evil, evil man. And I had no idea. You had no idea. No idea. Yeah. But he looked different then. Yeah, I was really blonde. No, he looked different then too. Oh, he did look different, didn't he?

Yeah. Wow. That was when he had taken a break from being the dictator, right? Yeah, I think he was prime minister at that had taken a break from being the dictator, right? Yeah. I think he was prime minister at that time or something, but then he just went right back into power. Oh, wow. Yeah.

It was creepy. So strange. Just being in that like kind of atmosphere and sweatpants and fight clothes. Back when tap out was still cool. Oh, yeah. Look at you. I loved them. They were like, they put me on their show.

They took such good care of me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a good, the tap out story is like a good cautionary tale for like beating a brand into the ground to the point where you got to like go up to some people and go, hey man, you can't wear our shit. Oh, I know. It's so funny though. It's so weird to, yeah. It's so weird to think yeah, it's so weird to think, like, branding and all of that. That's a huge, like, now I'm becoming so aware of it because I know other writers, that's a really big avenue.

Because if you think about Donald Trump, I mean, he's become president because of his brand, right? In a lot of ways, yeah. Yeah, and I'm stealing one of the other writers' ideas right now, so I shouldn't be saying that. But, yeah, but, I mean, really, he's a brand. And that brand was so successful, it convinced a bunch of people that that's what was going to be best for our country. And it was a brand. It was a commercial. There's that.

But I think there's also a real lack of substantial options. It wasn't like there was any one compelling person that was next to him. I know. I was such a Bernie fan. I really thought that he was outside of the mold. But everybody's a politician I mean it's he's a he's the best example I think of a guy who really isn't beholden to any special interest groups but I think what he offered and what Trump

offers as well is that they're outside of the system in some way Trump appears to be like way more inside the system than he was giving on to be. But at least it shakes up this ridiculous, they have this like really cryptic sort of way of doing business and bizarre way of intermingling money and influence and politics and putting it all together. And it's just something has got to come along to let people know, like, hey, this system sucks. It doesn't represent us.

It's foolish. It's ancient. It was made up back when people used to write with feathers. Right. We really need a better system. I agree. I totally agree. And, you know, like this entire election, everything about it has pushed me into being like, no, man, I'm a straight up socialist.

Like and I used to resist that title. I used to say, no, I'm liberal and I'm this. No, I'm a socialist i don't actually even think that i agree with some of the liberal things that have been espoused during all this like i think that we are at a point and evolved people you know in in such a respect that we have to take care of each other and it has to be mandated from a bigger power because we don't take care of each other otherwise. Now, when you say socialist, like in what way? How do you define it? You know, my idea of socialism, of course, would never fly.

But it's basically that we all pay into a system that pays us back. We all, you know, we all work for the common man. And I know that that's not, it never works. But in my mind, that's the way it should be, that we should all be working for the guy next to us. Well, it would work great if people like you, if they're hardworking, smart people. Well, I mean, I have student loans out now. I don't know that I'm the one. Well, there's another discussion totally, but I think student loans are disgusting.

I think what they're doing by subsidizing education and making people pay these ridiculous rates. Not only that, if you go bankrupt, it doesn't matter. You still have to pay your student loans. You can never get away from that. No, you can't. It's not a single other business venture that you get into. And you would consider investing in your education and possibly your future as some sort of a business venture, business slash educational adventure. You're not – you owe that money, period.

You're not getting away from it. No. They'll drag you to the ground. They will. And I would say the thing that it does have going for it is the interest rates a little bit better than like credit cards and cars and stuff like that. It should be zero interest rate. It should be.

I mean, education should be, in my opinion, it should be for everyone. Like people should be educated. It should be, you know. I'm with you. I think it should be free. Yes. And I think it should be available to anyone. Yes.

At any time in your life. I don't think you should be like 43 years old and you can't go back to school again. No. I mean, I think you should be able to go back to school at any time in your life. I don't think you should be like 43 years old and you can't go back to school again. I mean, I think you should be able to go back to school at any time. It shouldn't just be for 18 year old people right out of high school. It should be for anybody that really wants to learn and educate themselves. I actually think 18 year old people right out of high school should be taking some time off to actually see the world before they go back into this. Because if you don't choose to approach your education seriously, you're going to have a really hard time. I'm not a fan of rigid systems either. I'm not a fan of this really regimented go through four years of high school, go through four years of college.

Then you do this. Then you get a job. You're 30. You should have a child. Now you have a child. I just don't buy any of it. I just think there's so many different people out there with so many different dreams and aspirations and interests. We, we, we're, it's so rigid. And when kids see this rigid path in front of them, first of all, it gives them anxiety. That's what it used to give

me. I used to see people that were going to college and getting degrees and getting jobs. I'd get anxious because it was like, I'm not like them. I feel like a loser. I feel like an outcast, you know? And I think that if we made education free and made it more available to people, I just don't think, I think that if we could spend the amount of money that we spend on the military, not that we should cut back the amount of money, but there's got to be that same amount of money or in the neighborhood of that same amount of money that could go towards infrastructure, that could go towards education, that could go towards impoverished communities.

There's like zero effort made to build this country back up well i would say yeah and looking at the proposals on deck right now the little that's being used for it like the na and stuff like that that's being taken off now i mean the what the national endowment for the arts stuff like that that gives actual like people and artists who maybe don't fit the mold but actually have a venture going for them that they could be successful with if they got some sort of funding or support. I agree with that. But I've been to the L.A. County Museum of Art, that LACMA thing. Jesus Christ.

I'll take you there if you want. You'll fucking – you want to throw punches at people. They have the most ridiculous modern art. This is a video of people playing catch. This is art. And I'm not kidding. It's all subsidized. I have a very hard time.

I actually love modern art if I know what's going on. But if I don't, then I feel like I'm just not getting it. And I don't understand what's happening. But, yeah, I do think that I think not pushing art on people. I shouldn't say pushing art, but I guess providing opportunities for art for people. And not just art as in painting or sculpture,, but I mean, like writing and literature. And it's the ways I do think that the rigid educational system where you're just like, you do this, you do this, you do this. Some people's brains just aren't wired that way. But there are other avenues for

them to be creative and to find themselves. And like I found with MMA, I mean, I was pre-law. And then my last semester of college, I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to go to law school. I don't want to do this. I want to be a professional fighter. Now. What compelled you to do that? Because you, you had this long history of martial arts. You got into martial arts. You said when you're four, five? Yeah, four, four Taekwondo. Yeah. And so you had, when did you first compete? Did you compete in Taekwondo tournaments? I did. I did. Um, when I was a teenager, I did a lot of the NASCA circuit and the international sport

whatever those. So point karate. Yeah, I did a lot of point karate. You can tell from my fighting because I was always sticking my chin out. But yeah, no, I did a lot of sport karate and I was very anxious to be competitive. One of my friends, I went back to the final hook and shoot a couple weeks ago and one of my friends

Darryl Neer used to train with me and he a couple weeks ago, and one of my friends, Daryl Neer, used to train with me, and he said, don't you remember when you were 15 or you were running around the gym just asking people to punch you in the face? Because you weren't allowed to punch you in the face in some of these tournaments, and you wanted to know if you could keep fighting. I wanted to know if I could keep fighting if I got punched in the face or if I was going to quit. So you asked people to hit you in training so that you could see if you could keep going?

Yeah, and then I had my nose severely broken where I had to have surgery on it. And after that, that's when I decided to be a professional fighter. After the surgery. I should have probably waited. How did you get your nose broken initially? Spin hook kick. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, it was like over here. Yeah, that's a bad one. But now it's been broken like seven or eight times

now. I'd love to get it fixed again, but I'm not sure that my student health insurance covers that. Does your septum work or is it mushed up? Not really. It's mushed up. I can't breathe out of the left side. What I found out that was really disturbing was that your ears, like how they calcify and become cauliflower ear, your nose does that too. Oh, I can believe that.

Yeah. So the inside of your nose can develop all these hard calcified areas where blood is sort of pooled in. Oh, wow. Yeah. I had to get mine scraped out. And they cut out, I think they're called the turbinates, these big lumps in there. And they kind of cut them down to open up the path. And then they shove splints in there and separate it.

Like it molds around there? It makes the hole wider. I mean, making the hole wider is not always a good thing. But I would say for a nose, it's probably good. Yes. Yes and yes. I'm sorry. I'm kind of pervy.

Yeah. No, that's, I would love to have my nose fixed, but it is kind of helps you breathe. Like it helps you sleep if you can breathe. Your nose is a big thing. Mine was fucked up till I was 39, I think, or 40. And then I finally got it fixed. And I was like, I can't believe I lived like this my whole life. With a fucked up, stuffed up nose all the time.

Do you think more clearly now? Oh, yeah. My cardio's better. Everything's better. Like when, I didn't, I just was a mouth breather. Like literally a mouth breather. Yeah. There's a lot of fighters that are like that.

Like you talk to them, you kind of, you hear that in their voice, how they have that thing going on with the nasal. When you know like, oh, you're all clogged up, man. Yeah, I know. It's like, I always wonder what the relationship between fighters and sinus medication is. Oh, a lot. Yeah, I was going to say, I still take it all the time just to be able to function. But the problem is that shit's addictive.

It is. It's very addictive. Like, what is it, Afrin? Is that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're making me think right now. I can't breathe. Yeah, what is it? Afrin? Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like, yeah. You're making me think right now.

Yeah. It's a weird thing. That stuff. It makes your nostrils dilate and it opens them up. But when you stop taking it, it all clamps down. Yeah. And it feels like even tighter. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Not good. Yeah. A lot of to go to therapy for it. Yeah. A lot of guys stuff that stuff up their nose. Yeah, the body's just not meant to take the kind of abuse. You were detailing your neck is fucked up, your knees are fucked up.

Yeah, my shoulder's still pretty weak. The shoulder that you had fixed? Yeah. My labrum, it happened in the Tate fight. I think it was tearing before that fight because I always had a lot of shoulder pain. But I've had shoulder pain on both sides a lot. But during the Tate fight, I remember throwing a left hook or something

and just, whoa, what the hell happened? My labrum was torn all the way through. But I had this weird genetic thing called a Buford complex, which that's a hilarious name for something, but it's like a thickened tendon, so it was holding my arm up. So I didn't know that it was actually torn

all the way through. It wasn't like limp, but I do remember like not, all of a sudden not being able to base on my left side and being like, whoa, what's going on here? During the fight that was happening? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean.

So did you get that fixed? Yeah. That's what the surgery was for. But it was a really intense surgery. I didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal because I hear about people going to get their knees scoped and stuff like that. But I couldn't get out of bed for a week. Like I had to have my mother had to come take care of me. And I was like, you know, I was 32 years old. I was like, this is embarrassing. But I couldn't actually get out of bed for a week. Like I had to have, my mother had to come take care of me. And I was like, you know, I was 32 years old.

I was like, this is embarrassing. But I couldn't actually get out of bed and move. And I ended up having a bad reaction to the medication. And yeah, it was a good time. Good time. Surgery's tough. It is. And what we're saying that the human body is just not designed for combat sports.

Just after a while, everyone sort of gives out. That's why when you see a guy like Dan Henderson still throwing down at whatever he was, like 46 years old. And if you see Dan walk, he walks like he's made out of wood. You know, he walks like

he's got no flexibility and then all of a sudden he's in the cage and he just comes alive. It's crazy. There is something about that. Greg always called me the Lucille Ball of MMA

because he said that I was just the clumsiest person he'd ever met. Like I would just fall, like I would trip over everything. I fell down all the time. But he said, but when you were fighting, you actually something like use that phrase came alive. He said you would actually move like you were supposed to be moving. So I do think that maybe the human body is not meant to take punishment in combat sports.

But I think we're also built to fight in a lot of ways. I mean, we've been fighting for years. It's it really is, it's cliche, but it is kind of in our DNA to scrap. It is. It's just not in your DNA to do it all the time and stay alive. Right. And to sweat your body down to this certain part and then go here and then, you know, yeah. Let's talk about that because that is the one of the most disturbing things that's happening lately. All these fights that are falling apart because people are cutting weight and cutting so much weight that they're literally on death's door. I mean, back to the Hennen-Borow fight when he was supposed to fight TJ Dillashaw and

he fell asleep and banged his head off the wall. Just a couple weeks ago, the Habib Nurmagomedov-Tony Ferguson fight gets called off, which is one of the biggest fights of the year. Yeah. And for fans, it's just so disappointing because we were so looking forward to that fight. What do you think could be done about that as a professional? As a professional, a former... And as a commentator.

Yeah. Let's say, too, you do commentary for Invicta. You know, and I was also the matchmaker. So I was actually, I stepped down from that when I went back to school. So I'm no longer the Invicta matchmaker. But part of my job was I had this really regimented checking the girl's weight twice a day. I should say the fighter's weight, but I'm a girl too, so I can say girl. But you know, I would check their weight twice a day and I had them text me their weight. And I'd be like, okay, I need you to send me a picture of what you're weighing on your scale

right now and compare it to this. Like I was, I was kind of a bitch, but I didn't want fighters missing weight on my watch. The problem was they were still going to miss weight anyway. There's something archaic about it. It needs to change. I think more weight classes, you've said that before, I think more weight classes is a really good idea. I feel like every 10 pounds is more than reasonable. I mean, boxing is way better.

There's way more options. I think every six pounds almost would be, although that's a lot more divisions, but I mean, there's so many people who want activity. There's so many people who want to fight. I think for women, more importantly, because when you're talking about six pounds, you're talking about a greater percentage of body weight for a lighter person. Now, when you're talking about 10 pounds for a heavyweight, it's like they take a shit it's 10 pounds.

You know, there's giant people like Francis Ngannou, that guy could probably lose 10 pounds in three minutes if he wanted to. It's huge. Yeah, there's so much surface area to sweat from. So massive. But when you're talking about Mighty Mouse, 10 pounds is a giant amount of weight. It seems like it. Or Ioan Jojic, you know, like 115. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to see her

at 25, but I'm really 80. Is she gonna go up, do you think? I don't know, but I'm hoping. I'm hoping. Does she have a hard time to make 15? I don't know. I know that she said she's expressed an interest at her at 25, but I'm really 80. Is she going to go up, do you think? I don't know, but I'm hoping. I'm hoping. I hope they bring the 25s. Does she have a hard time to make 15? I don't know. I know that she said she's expressed an interest at fighting at 125, which makes me think that 115, like I don't, I've met her maybe twice, so I've never had a lengthy discussion with her. She's so badass.

I know. I, every time she fights, I just get so excited. She's so ferocious. I know. She's so ferocious. I watched that fight with her and Jessica Panay again. It's like, good lord. Yeah. Like, when she smells blood and she starts attacking

and smashing with elbows, like, she's one of the scariest people in the sport. And it's beautiful, isn't it? And you can't get her off you. You can't get her off you. No, and right at the end of her punches. Yeah. She knows exactly what to do with her punch. Timing, everything. She's so technical and she's just so goddamn aggressive

you know technical aggressive ferocious she fucks with their heads yeah she gives people cookies and shit before she beats their ass yeah i love that i love that that that entertainment side of it was never something i captured myself like i didn't have that little niche sort of but when i see fighters do that like her who can be the package, who can destroy an opponent and make the fans look forward to just watching her walk onto a stage, I love that. I'm just like, man. Well, that's really who she is. You know, I mean fighter, or who creates something for themselves and how much of that is actually authentic or how much they try to pretend. Right, right. Yeah.

Yeah, and when you do fake it, everybody sort of sees that you're faking it and it comes off gross and they get mad at you. Mm-hmm. Right. A guy like Conor, you know, like that famous press conference where Jeremy Stevens calls him out and he goes, who the fuck is that guy? I love that line. But this thing that he has is natural.

I mean, it is who he is. He just knows how to do it. And so when he does it, it's effortless. But when some people try it, it just looks so goofy. It's just, oh, it's worse. People want to see you lose when you do that. It does. It does.

It comes as inauthentic. And it's the weird demand that we have as fans, because I don't consider myself a fighter anymore. I'm a fight fan now. But we have this demand for the fighters to be authentic when they're fighting, but also when they present themselves. They have to be themselves somehow, or we call them fake. We have a lot of demands on fighters.

Well, you're putting them under this massive microscope. I mean, you're seeing someone. When you see two fighters go to war, you're seeing their souls bared out. I mean, you see so much in what they're capable of, like how they're capable of focusing, pushing themselves, what they've done to discipline themselves to get ready physically. I mean, you can see that. You see them express themselves with their endurance. Like talking about Mighty Mouse again.

Like you see what amount of work that guy's put in in the gym when you see him in the fifth round moving 1,000 miles an hour and not even breathing heavy. It's like there's expression in that. Like you're seeing something that this guy is like showing you everything he's got. He's showing you his full character. Yeah, and he's showing there's that click that happens with some fighters where they're getting

beaten down and all of a sudden they turn it around. Misha Tate's a great example of that. Like, you know, in her fight with Holly, she kicked my ass too with the arm bar. You know, she turns it around. Something happens in there. And you can see that that's the warrior thing that has won actual wars in people where they've, you know, like, I don't know, it makes me think of Henry V a little bit, you know, like, you know, just those moments where we are outnumbered,

this is going to suck, I'm losing, everything's going against me. All right, here I go. I'm still going to keep pushing. And it's like, you know, it's like moments like that. If you can look at fighting from, I guess you don't take fighting personally. Maybe I don't know how to explain it by taking it personally, but if you can invest yourself in those moments of glory for another person, then you get inspired. Yeah. And you get really turned on to the whole sport,

and you really understand. You can see the human. Is that easier for you to do now that you've retired than it was to do while you're competing? Yes. Did you compare yourself against those people too much? I'm the most, I'm a terrible person in a lot of ways, I think. I was just, I mean, you know, I think mentally I defeated myself

more than I ever did physically. Like, you know, I, but yeah, I always compared myself against other people. And I was like, oh my gosh, this person's doing this, this, this. I'm not getting that. I'm not doing that. I've got to go this direction. And the pressure, I think, on female fighters, and it wasn't exactly an outright pressure to, you know, be sexy or be hot or something like that. You know, I tried that so

hard when I first started fighting. Like, I took the nude pictures and I tried to be the sexy girl and I just could not pull it off. You could see in my face, I'm just like, doofy girl. You know, I didn't have that. I'm a huge fan of sex and sexuality and however people want to express it. It's amazing. But for me, it just had nothing to do with combat. Right. And so the fighters, the female fighters who could combine that to me, it was just, I was befuddled.

I was like, how do they do that? How do they put that together like that and still, you know, feel tough or still feel ferocious? Because, I mean, sex is ridiculously fun and sexuality is like awesome, but it's also, to me, it's not punching people in the face. And so it was, and I would always compare myself to, oh, I should do that. I should do that, you know, but I can't do that. It's just inauthentic. And I think, I don't know, to me, authenticity is this like weird, huge part of my life that I'm trying to study with my writing and stuff. But it's funny how I would see them just like Karate Hottie, for example. Like she came into the gym, into Jackson. Michelle Watterson.

Yeah, Michelle Watterson. Yeah, yeah, Michelle. People don't know. Well, yeah, we call her Nuts or Peanut, but yeah. That's what you guys call her? Peanut, yeah, because she's so little. But when she came to the gym, she was this like little Hooters model. I was like, who the fuck is this? You know, like I almost connered like, but, and then she, I had a black

eye when we were sparring the first time. And then she gave me another black eye, like right away, the first time sparring, just bam, kick me right in the face. And I was just like, oh, I like her. But I was also like, I had these hangups about it because I was so uncomfortable with that sort of marketing and that way of presenting yourself. And also women weren't in the UFC then. You know, our opportunities were so weird. And so I would question people who would push that side of themselves so much and then not, I'm the fighter woman. I'm going to do this. Like the Instagram model type thing where they're trying to do both.

That was my space then, which is embarrassing to say. And then it's funny because I had this tension with her because I was like, I don't want to market myself in that direction. It's not who I am exactly when it comes to MMA. And then, of course, Greg sent that there was an uncomfortableness between us. And he took us up to the top of the mountain and made us run sprints till we were crying and holding on to each other and became sisters. Like it was just like he was just like, oh, that's bullshit. You are sisters. You're training partners. You're here for each other.

And it was amazing. It was just like something clicked in my mind where I was just like, oh, yeah, she can promote herself however the fuck she wants to. Yeah. Well, if she's being authentic. Yeah, exactly. That's how she is. That's who she is.

She was a model. That was her profession before this. So it made a lot more sense to me when I could step back out of what the boxes that I placed myself under, or the containers, not necessarily boxes because I didn't feel closed in, but the containers that I was comfortable working within for myself aren't the same for the person next to me. Yeah. And so, you know, it taught me to have a little bit more respect for people who want to combine everything the way they want to combine it. Well, I think there's a natural inclination to try to shoot down potential rivals or potential,

you know, like you're looking at people and you're trying to pick apart what they do. I mean, in a lot of ways, when you're a fighter, you have predatory instincts. I mean, you must. When you're sizing up a future opponent, there's no way you're not looking at things they do wrong or things that you think you can exploit. Or maybe, you know, maybe she doesn't work hard enough or maybe she misses weight because her discipline's off. And you start looking for holes in their game. And you're going to do that with a rival in the gym as well.

Of course you are. And, you know, I wouldn't even go so far to say we were rivals as I was 30 pounds heavier than her. So I was just a bully. But, you know, the truth of the matter is also because especially the early terrain of women in the sport, when there was another woman who came into the gym, this could either be your best training partner ever or it could be somebody coming in here, you know, to pick up. You don't know. And I think men look at the gym that way, too. I think they size each other up in the gym with a new partner coming in and stuff like that. Sure. And it's interesting because it sounds so sexist when I say it, but it's also, I don't want to lie, sit here and lie to you and say I think that, you know, like,

when other women would come into the gym, I would be like, yay! You know, that evolved over time, and especially because the atmosphere that Greg created there was incredible. Like, I was the first MMA girl, really, in that gym. And then, you know, and then Michelle was there, and then other people. And now it's like, there's a huge women's team over there. What was it like to be sparring with men when you were the first woman there to be doing most of your training with men and then going in there

and fighting women? Well, there were all sizes, but you know, I'll be honest. I think training with women is important if you're fighting women. I think that there's a different kind of intensity and flexibility, um, in body types. And I don't know that that's completely across the board, but I did find it better to have female sparring partners. And I was very fortunate in that Holly Holm was at the gym boxing and she could kickbox and she knew how to sprawl. So, you know, I was still getting sparring with women there. And Jodi Esquibel, she, man, she was fighting at 105. And I remember Keith had me spar her for 10 rounds and she dropped me twice at 105. I have terrible chin. spar her for 10 rounds, and she dropped me twice, a 105-er.

I have a terrible chin. I would just say I just boxed like this all the time. That karate style, standing there like that. It's so hard to get out of that style, right? I know. It's like I had a really good jaw. I was rarely knocked out, but it was the jaw that I put in front of people constantly. I was always like, come on, hit me.

Did you ever think about doing professional boxing? I did. I did. I did. I thought about it. Especially, you know, when, because there was quite a few female boxers in that gym. And I thought it would be an interesting thing to do. But I just never took that path. I was a pretty decent boxing sparring partner.

Like, I learned how to imitate, you know, their opponents and stuff. But, yeah, I think I was always better in the gym than I actually was in competition. Now, throughout your career, did you worry at all about head trauma? Did you worry about the consequences of it? Not until after. Not until after. Not until after. Why after? Because you didn't want to think about it? Or was it a conscious decision? And I think you have that mentality that you can beat anyone and anything, even your own body, right? So it's like, I'm not going to let that kind of negativity into my life if i get knocked out whatever you know but my last fight i do remember um my jaw was out a little bit i had like somebody just adjust my jaw because i kept getting dropped

in the sparring for my last fight and i was just like oh this sucks so you got your jaw yeah it was like yeah i don't know there was a chiropractor on hand and i don't know how legit it was it wasn't legit he seems like a really nice guy he was an orthotherapist and he said your jaw's offline and then he like did some kind of thing and I stopped getting dropped which was nice but I don't. That doesn't really jive. It doesn't. So I don't know how much of that was psychosomatic. Probably a whole bunch. And me

just thinking okay this is what fixes me getting dropped or whatever. But I did think towards the end if I got dropped three times in sparring before the fight with Kohea and that was in one day and I was like okay three times in one day yeah you kept sparring well no they pulled me out yeah you have to stop now they should have pulled you out don't you think after the first well I don't think everybody was I mean it's a big sparring room I don't think they didn't know

yeah I don't think people were paying that much attention I mean there's a lot going on then when you got dropped was it a flash knockdown or did you feel your legs go um flash knockdown i i i don't think i've ever been completely unconscious um i but you've gone limp and then gotten back up yeah yeah and it's the same thing you don't you don't recognize your weakness right you don't recognize that your brain could have problems you don't reckon you know right as long as you're walking and moving exactly you have to keep moving forward and think that that mentality, I don't want to, I don't want to disrespect that mentality because I think that's also the mentality that makes champions. But if you never became a champion and you went through that, then you kind of wonder, I didn't make great choices with my life. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. I think

what you're saying rings true to pretty much anybody that follows the sport. Like, we really admire those Diego Sanchez warriors. You know, like, if Diego Sanchez is fighting, I'm watching. You know, I wouldn't want my kid to fight the way he fights. Right. You know, Diego fights like a goddamn human wolverine. You know, he's just a beast. Yeah, he's so intense.

Just charge forward. You know, I mean, and he's been stopped and he's lost, but it's just the ferocity in which he approaches fighting. It's heart and will and just determination, and it's all together in this indomitable spirit package. You know, I mean, it's a very, I mean, Diego might not be a world champion. He might not ever win a world title, but the amount of fans that guy has won just by, because when he's so entertaining, like what you're trying to see when you're watching two people fight

is one person try to figure out a way to triumph over the obstacle in front of them. That is the person over the body that wants to stop, over the lungs that are burning, over the legs that are giving out. Do you think that rings true now in entertainment and sports? Do you think that the UFC or Bellator or whatever show is on, do you think that that's still what people are looking for? Sometimes. Sometimes.

I mean, I don't always look for it. Like, I got criticized because people said that the Tyron Woodley, Stephen Wonderboy Thompson fight wasn't a good fight. I'm like, while that fight was going on, I was on the edge of my seat. Because at any moment, it could have gotten amazing. Because you can see the math that they're doing before their techniques almost. I mean, not consciously doing math, but they're adjusting to each other every second of the fight. And I thought it was fascinating that Wonderboy was playing this very conservative stay on the outside thing.

And Tyron Woodley, in order to close the distance, he had a risk getting hit and he got hit a few times. I mean, it was a fascinating fight to me. But people don't want chess matches. They want the last minute of the last round when Tyron connected and Wonderboy was wobbling and looked like he was going out. That's what they want. They want slobber knockers. They want Rocky. Especially people that don't train.

They just watch the sport and they just think, you know, oh, I want to see someone get their ass kicked. You know, they don't care that someone is using amazing footwork or that someone has a completely different style than what people are used to. Wonderboy with that sideways sport karate stance. So difficult to decipher. And he's also so good at timing. His sliding in and out movement is so good and his ground is very good too he doesn't have to go there that often

yes I'm a fan of the whole thing I like all of it I like wars, I like tactical matches I like a guy like Mighty Mouse who just barely ever gets hit and I like someone like Diego that comes out biting down on his mouthpiece and

you, you know, he could be covered in blood and he just fights harder. Diego Sanchez won more third rounds when he got his ass kicked the first two than like anybody. The Gilbert Melendez fight. Oh my gosh. You know, Jake Ellenberger, you know, the last minute of the fight, he's on Jake Ellenberger's back, punched him in the head. It's crazy.

He's just so ferocious. Marvin Kampman, same thing. Martin Kampman fight. Martin Kampman had him like his face was hanging off. It was so gross. It was hanging off. And he's still chasing him down the third round. Like there's nobody more ferocious than that.

Yeah. But, you know, and it's the times like that. Like how can you not admire that? How can you not want to see that or find something in yourself that's like that, that will not give up? That if you're at the brink of, I mean, not necessarily death because it's just an enactment, right, of that. Well, let's be real, though. We're kind of being nice about it, but it is kind of at the brink of death. I mean, Robbie Lawler, Rory McDonald, that was, to me, the brink of death.

I mean, you're getting really close. Those guys were fucking going to war. And when Rory's nose caved in and blood's pouring out of his face and he just collapses and he couldn't take it anymore. I mean, how far away from death is that? Is it a couple blocks? Is it in the neighborhood? You can see death from there. That's for sure.

But does that, when you're watching it or when you're analyzing it, do you feel, does that feel differently than when you first started? I guess watching and analyzing when you see these moments now? It feels bad when, it does bother me when I know them too well, you know, when I know them too well and I see them getting, when I see a fight like, like Rory McDonald, Robbie Law, I know, okay, whoever wins this fight, neither one of those guys is going to be the same again. They gave a part of who they were in that fight. And, you know, Don Fry said that once about his fight with Ken Shamrock.

He said, whoever won that fight, it doesn't matter because we both lost something. We both lost whoever we both lost who whoever we were when we went in there we weren't the same guy when we left you know that we left something he goes i don't know if ken's gonna admit it but i'll tell you i lost something in there i'm not the same person anymore yeah you know it's funny it's it's so much i guess i'm working on so many writing projects right now and so many things that i'm trying to analyze mma from such a different perspective now but if you think about it what they've sacrificed to that canvas,

like what they've given, like all of these fighters, all of these greats and all these not greats who've still given that part of themselves to that canvas. And you wonder, what's the payback exactly? What do you get from that? Glory. Yeah, exactly. Glory, those moments, those those moments and also this understanding that you are the type of person that can persevere you know i mean we've we've settled uh the world basically you know we've been all over the world we know we know the world we know space we're

getting out there we're figuring those things out but these are the almost the worlds and the spaces and the glories that fight for glory in these strange heterotopic spaces that we create for ourselves so that what's a heterotopic space it's like a uh it's a it's a folk cult thing it's um um i guess well this is like i was i was just going to actually ask you with podcasting and stuff like that it's a space that's other sort of that you create an environment that's other than the norm sort of of, in a way. It's kind of hard for me. It's like non-hegemonic. But it's... It's super unusual, outside-the-box space. Yeah.

It's a strange environment. It's something that's created. It's kind of a utopia, but it's a controlled utopia. It's a heterotopia. It kind of molds those two ideas. Okay. And I was going to ask you kind of about podcasting and stuff like that, because you kind of create one when your voice goes out over the air. And when you're doing these things, you're entering into people's heads, you yourself in a way or your voices. And it's creating this space that's other where they're connected with you. Right. And it's just an other space. And I think that fighting and I think the cage is that as well. I think it's this, um, it's this new Avenue, it's this new area.

And that's where I feel so troubled when it comes to the commercialization of it all, because I wonder people are still fighting for glory and stuff, but are they, or are they fighting for the pretty pictures? I don't know. Like, and I can't ask people, I don't know exactly. Like, I really want the answers to that. I want to know why people still fight. I know why I did it.

I think everybody has their own different reasons. And sometimes those reasons don't serve you well. Like when Ronda Rousey came back and when she fought Amanda Nunes and all the lead up was all about Ronda Rousey. And it was also about her getting back to being the best in the world. And I was watching all that. And it was like, I'm going to be world champion because fighting is the most important thing. And I was watching, and I was like, wow, this is all on paper.

I mean, I'm keeping my mind open. I'm excited to see that she's in great shape. She's coming back fully motivated. Not excited that she hasn't made any changes to her camp, but we'll see what happens. She's got amazing judo, and she was a world beater for a real reason but i'm all the red flags are there yeah all the wrong ideas right nothing about the actual world champion who exactly who yeah and it's like and i i freaking adore ronda rousey and i mean it's my teammate like holly is the one who not like holly dethroned her but i i adore ronda and what she's

done and the things that she's done in that mentality that's a diego sanchez mentality here i go but it's not in the way that she's she got used to a very specific thing happening when she fought was her dominating and when that didn't happen in that one fight look she tried her best against holly but holly fought the perfect fight and Ronda fought the wrong fight. Absolutely wrong. The wrong way to fight Holly. Charge at her. Yeah, with the hook.

Yeah. And Holly was so ready for that fight. She was ready for that fight for years. I could see that. I could see in her training. She fought perfect. It was literally a flawless performance by Holly. So she loses that fight.

She gets devastated and chalks it off to lack of training, chalks it off to distractions. So this time she's going to do no media. She's going to do no interviews, no nothing. Just go in there and just be bulldog about it. But when you see, like, the discussions about this fight and you see people, you know, that were behind the scenes, they were all convinced that she was going to steamroll Amanda Nunes. There were so many people back there. I was like, you guys are out of your fucking mind. I was saying before the Holly fight

that Amanda was probably the most dangerous fight for her because Amanda's really fucking good on the ground and her stand-up is vicious. She's got brutal knockout power and she's long. She throws these long-ass punches and she catches you on the end of these punches. I'm like, that's a nightmare for Ronda, because Ronda likes to stand up and brawl to close the distance.

And even if you close the distance with Amanda Nunes, it's no picnic. No, and Amanda's got actually a very good clench and a very good awareness of where her body goes. And her center of gravity seems to be, you're right, she's so long, it seems to be a little bit lower than, I think it would be very hard to launch her on her head. Although Zingano did very well with the belly-to-belly suplex. That's what that was, right? I got to remember that. There's another woman who's fucking ferocious as hell.

Kat Zingano. So much intensity. I remember, you know, I first met her in Colorado. We were on the same fight show. It was when I filmed Tap Out. And I tried to go say hi to her because, oh, another female fighter. You know, we weren't fighting each other. And she just totally, and I was like, oh, what a bitch.

And then I got to know her better. And I was just like, she is an amazing person. She's just intense. She is. She had a fight coming up. She didn't want to talk to anybody. She didn't want to have, you know, who I was. You know, I didn't know who she was.

And we weren't going to talk. And then, yeah, and then I just got to absolutely adore her. know who she was and we weren't going to talk and then yeah and then i just got to absolutely adore her but you know back to ronda and all of that i i feel like it's interesting the diego sanchez like kind of the mentality the the bite down in the third round i think you have something there where you push when it's against you and i wonder that something that that knockout interrupted her or you know when holly got her and interrupted her her forward progression and then going back pulling back away from the media and stuff i almost wonder if that in itself was kind of a denial of that interruption and maybe uh trying to create a space for herself i don't know i'm so obsessed with this idea of creating our own spaces and what we're doing in our own

lives because everybody's so different very important yeah and and what she was she was trying to to I guess, plot out the way to this fight and to wait for this victory against Amanda Nunes and not being distracted and not doing press and stuff like that. And I almost think if she had done the press, and this is just a theory, I don't know her that well.

I think she's a lovely person. But if she had done the press, if she had exposed herself to all of that again, if she would have had more of a triumphant attitude, because she would have known when you know what it's like to lose and you know that you can still get up the next day and be okay and face the people who you said a million things to, a million confident things to, and you're wrong,

or you were wrong for a night, and understand that you can actually still get them to see your side. I don't know if that makes any sense. It does. I see what you're saying. I see where you're going with it. I don't know.

I think there's a bunch of problems technically with how she's preparing. I think her work with Edmund made her look really good on the Mets. But there's a big difference between looking good on the mitts and having a bunch of different options tactically when you're in a fight. And I think a lot of that comes with just long, long sessions in the gym, a lot of experience, and years and years of sparring and fighting. But she was just, go forward, go forward go forward attack go forward attack and when she started getting hit she didn't have any answers she was like throwing up this sort of

push away front kick and moving away against amanda and she was kind of done from like the first couple of punches landing and i think that if you look at real seasoned strikers you know like like a good example would be boy there's a lot of good examples but you want to get in jay check and uh her last fight against carolina kivalkovic okay that that is two very seasoned strikers yes there was a lot of like a lot of feints there was a lot of different angles there's a lot of different approaches it was try one way that doesn't work let's go over here that doesn't work let's go over here now i got't work. Let's go over here. Now I got something. Let's try that again. Went to the well too many times. Try back to this again. It was a communication. There was a conversation

going on. What you're seeing a lot of fighters is they're shouting out one or two words, but they're not articulate, meaning their approach is very, if you see someone and they just keep going to the big right hand over the top, big right hand over the top, it's like, you're just banking on this one thing and someone is going to be able to figure out that approach. And it might not be the person that's right in front of you, but someone who's really good is going to find their way through that. And they're going to be able to talk circles around you. I talk all the time about when I watch fighting, I try to break it down objectively. I'm saying what it mirrors in a lot of ways is communication. And that really truly articulate people that have a long, long history of using a deep vocabulary are way better off with a nuanced

conversation than someone who is just, they might be able to say, get off my lawn. You know, they might be able to yell out one phrase, but how can they adapt to someone who's passive? How can they adapt to someone who tricks them? How can they adapt to someone who paints them into a corner? Like, can you figure your way out of a trap? Do you understand a trap? And when you see it in fighting, you see people getting set up and you see things happening.

Like Anderson, like Anderson Silva was a master at setting people up and a master of that like figuring out the language of what you do what do you do like what's your thing like what you could see him when he was moving with guys he would stand southpaw he would switch up he'd move around he would give you a little of this and he just tried to and then eventually he'd figure out your rhythm and then start dropping shit on you and when he did it was masterful to watch because here's a guy that had figured out whatever rhythm you're on. He'd figured out the symphony of your movements.

I think that's beautiful. I think that's beautiful. And I think that describing that as a conversation with another person, it's perfect. It is a dialogue between two people. It's a dialogue of physicality and strength and stuff like that. But there's a conversation happening there in the cage. of physicality and strength and stuff like that. But there's a conversation happening there in the cage.

And I think when we go back to maybe the aspects of, I actually think that Ronda Rousey's training might have been a little bit too boxing-oriented. Not that she didn't throw kicks, not that she didn't use her judo, but she didn't prepare for chaos. And I don't know that boxers always prepare for chaos because it's such a layered, this step, you move your foot this way, you move your foot this way, you move your foot this way, you move your head this way, you respond this way.

You know, it's so beautiful. But when you see boxers like Tyson, who could throw that double right, you know, the hook to the body and then the uppercut and stuff like that, he could prepare for the chaos because he could bring chaos. And I think that in her early fights, there was chaos there because she wasn't as sure of herself. It was, ah, I got to get what I need to get. And that unsettled fighters.

But then when she got more comfortable with hitting the mitts, when she got more comfortable with that moving forward and having everything laid out for her perfectly, you're going to do this, you're going to spar this person, this is going to happen. Now, I'm making a lot of assumptions here. I never trained with her. Of course. I never sparred with her. I see what I've been presented by UFC media and commercials and stuff like that. And I do as well, as well as people that I know that trained with her that didn't like the environment. Yeah. Thought that it was just a little bit too unrealistic.

And that's, I think, what maybe the conversation between old school MMA and what's going on in MMA right now with commercialization and it's worldwide. And on one hand, I'm so happy for the fighters that they're getting paid more, that, that the opportunities are there that, you know, they don't have to worry about crappy sponsors, although I'm not a huge Reebok fan, but whatever, it's not my business. Like, but, um, the, um, they don't prepare for chaos anymore as much. And chaos was what we thrived on back in the day. Right. We didn't know who we were going to fight. I fought three people, one, three people, one night, one time I lost a fight. And then the next day I took a kickboxing fight because I was so mad I lost an MMA fight. Like, there was no regulation, and I could have gotten seriously, like, injured, right? But at the same time, it was that chaos that was so beautiful.

Like, finding where you are in the chaos and finding your own patterns in that and preparing for it. And that's, I don't know, that's the old school MMA that I miss a little bit. Well, there's definitely something interesting and fascinating about that chaos. But there's also, when you're talking about a professional and when you're talking about someone last minute or something happens like when conor mcgregor last minute wasn't facing javier dos anjos all of a sudden he was facing nate diaz on 11 days notice i mean that that kind of chaos is a completely different animal i i totally agree with you and you know i might be contradicting myself here but i don't care because also when john jones rejected the the fight the initial like when chael was supposed to step in for him

and he said no that's not what my team you know wants and he got so much shit for that and the whole event got canceled at the same time it's just like that's a pretty smart professional move to make it is and it isn't you know i think john also didn't want to reward chael sun and for all that shit talking yeah but my thought is john jones smokes chael sun and if you wake him up at five o'clock in the morning after he's been out drinking. I just I just don't think they're in the same stratosphere. No, I don't think so either. But I do think that that although it was a move that affected a lot of people negatively who are supposed to be on that card and affected the company negatively. It was a very big power move.

And it was also a move towards saying, hey, I'm I'm more professional than this. You can't do that to me. Yeah, I agree. But if I was in John's corner i'd be so listen to me dude you're the motherfucker of all motherfuckers go out there and smash that dude having been the person who was with the people in his corner i would say they're gonna do things the way they see best for him yeah no i get it but i just like that's not rumble johnson no but that's also the ways that's also the ways if you're not prepared specifically. Again, I'm going back to what I was saying about the chaos,

but you have to train for chaos, and you do have to be prepared specifically for opponents. You're very right in that. You have to know what somebody's going to do. That's how Holly was so successful about Ronda. She knew every move that was going to come her way. Right. And I think that when you switch things up on such a level

where it was that big of a fight, somebody he'd been preparing for Henderson it was Henderson right am I John was fighting Henderson in 157 I I'm there were a lot of fights who was he fighting who where I thought it was who had to pull out a lot of fights I don't know I just I know Chael came in and it was it was a quest guy right it was supposed to be Dan Henderson really I thought so it was a quest guy, right? It was supposed to be Dan Henderson, really? I thought so. It was a quest guy. Did Dan Henderson and Jones ever fight? No.

I'm pretty sure it was Henderson. I could be completely mistaken, but... Dan Henderson did fight Daniel Cormier. Remember that fight? And Daniel just sort of ragdolled him all over the place. I don't know. I don't remember who the hell John was supposed to fight. It just seemed as though those are the moments where a legacy can be very shaken.

Now, John's done his own work of shaking up his own legacy yeah i mean john just needs someone to talk to i i think that we all make poor choices and some people's poor choices are a little bit bigger than other people's poor choices well and there's also wild motherfuckers do wild motherfucker shit like you want some dude who opens up with shogun with a flying knee when he's 22 years old and catches Shogun on the chin. That's Jon Jones.

That whole wild man thing is the reason why he's so goddamn good in the first place because he has amazing confidence. What makes Jon special is like the Gustafson fight.

A fight that he admittedly was in shitty shape for. Really wasn't training, was partying way too much, wasn't really paying attention, didn't think Gustafson could beat him and got dragged deep into the fifth round still wound up winning he didn't fold up he fought i mean he wound up winning the fifth round he wound up taking it to him he pulled that fight out and he made it i mean look gustafson's a bad motherfucker it's not like gustafson was a pushover. But Jon Jones made that fight way harder than it was by not being in condition, not being in shape, and still gutted it out and won.

I think that part of him that I hope he returns to that is all about, I don't know, those Diego Sanchez moments. It becomes your spirit that's fighting there, not just your body that's fighting, but something else has to take over and take the reins. When Vitor popped his arm, and Vitor had his arm so hyperextended. I thought he was going to tap. I was like, holy crap. I was hoping he was going to tap. I didn't want to see his arm break. You know what I mean?

It was fucking nasty. And when his toe was half torn off in that other fight. He didn't know about that. Yeah, he just didn't feel it. Like, that's another level. Yeah, he didn't know about that until he was doing the post-fight interview and looked down and saw his toe. And he was like, holy shit. And then we got him a stool and he sat down on the stool and he was kind of in shock.

Yeah. Yeah, I always called him my little brother at the gym. But I always, yeah, it's been, he's not my little, I guess, I haven't been at the gym in a long time. John is almost too talented for his own good and surrounded by the wrong kind of people. I think that he does that, yeah. I think that he, there's something about him that self-sabotages. It's easy. It's easy to self-sabotage.

You know, it's like the pressure of being a John Jones. But you think about the amount of money that guy missed out on, you know, and then he's coming back in July and he'll most likely be fighting the winner of Daniel Cormier Rumble Johnson, which is in a couple of months. If they could do that in time, because you've got to go May, June, July, maybe. I mean, it really depends on how this fight goes. But he still has a chance to pull it off and still has a chance to be the greatest of all time. But he's fucked up pretty hard.

I like John, though. I just think John's around the wrong fucking people he's a good dude i just think that um yeah i i think that we all wake up at some point and i just think his wake up hasn't happened yet like even with maybe with the suspensions and the stuff that he's saying but i think that he also tried very hard to to brand himself a certain way that again authenticity inauthent inauthenticity you know like i think that i'm sure that i i'm not a religious person so i don't really know how to say if somebody is being super christian or not being super christian or being whatever that they they identify with

like it's not my that's not my knowledge sphere but i will say that it didn't seem the things that he was saying didn't jive with how he was and it came out and people hated him for it they did get mad at that because he was trying to present this good people hated him for it they did get mad at that because he was trying to present this goody two-shoes image and meanwhile he's a wild man yeah and you know the wild man is a respected figure and not maybe respected but it's a it's a vaulted figure in society like donald cowboy serone is a perfect example he's 100 on his sleeve wild man yeah yeah i love him he's yeah and a good dude but yeah wildman he has to have those rushes he has to have that that danger coming at him yeah he lives for it he genuinely lives for it and without it he doesn't

feel as as tuned in doesn't feel as alive it's a crazy fucking sport julie kedzie it's crazy i want to know you i want to know about you who were you when you first started all this who was i yeah who were you and are you the same person now like who were you like who was joe rogan well it's just like it's something i'm i'm thinking about these heterotopic spaces and i'm thinking about authenticity i'm like here's a person i was actually just gonna email you these questions i was like oh well if i come in here i can plug invicta and that would be great because i love plugging invicta but um also but i just i i've never really sat down and talked to you. And I guess, who were you when this started? And who are you now? Like, are you the same person? Well, I'm not the same

person I was six months ago. I mean, that's just, yeah, I would imagine, if you're constantly thinking about things and constantly growing and trying to reevaluate constantly. Yeah, I was younger. I was just a few years removed from martial arts competition and kickboxing and doing some acting and stuff. And did you train for standup? Did you? Sort of. I had to take a few acting classes when I got a development deal, but it was because I already had a television show. And so they said, Hey, you should learn how to act. It was really that it wasn't that it was something that I trained for. No, I, um, I was doing standup and I got a development deal to do a sitcom.

And so then all of a sudden, I found myself out here. And I was like, when I moved out here, I was like 25, 6, something like that. And I was just trying to figure out what I'm doing. Why am I acting? This whole thing is weird. And then a couple years later, I guess I was 97. I was training at carlson gracie's place and vitor was 19 and uh he had just beaten john hess over in hawaii i was a white belt over there and uh mario sperry trained there and carlos pajetto and uh marillo bustamante to watch

those guys train it was amazing yeah and this is back when no one knew any of those guys were you know it was it was really really interesting it was really interesting to one knew any of those guys were. It was really, really interesting. It was really interesting to be a part of that original Carlson Gracie gym and watch those guys work out together and watch everything. And so when the UFC needed a post-fight interviewer, they just had caught one of the guys who was one of the producers, Campbell McLaren, was friends with my manager. And they just casually mentioned it.

And they brought it up to me. And we had a conference call. And I was like, I'll fucking do that. Like, what do you want me to do? And so the next thing you knew, I was flying out to Dothan, Alabama on those little propeller planes. I was interviewing Mark Coleman. I was like, this is crazy. Watching Vitor Belfort's debut.

It was crazy watching Vitor Belfort's debut. It was a fascinating time to catch MMA sort of in its transition from being the spectacle that it once was just four years prior to becoming a legitimate sport. Vitor entered the octagon. He had gloves on. Vitor used to fight with shoes on sometimes. You were still allowed to grab clothes back then because I remember this guy uh had i forget who uh valide ishmael fought but uh he literally was grabbing

his underwear and his pants and giving him this like intense wedgie while they were fighting like his cup was snapping and it was totally legal yeah yeah you didn't have to have gloves the weight classes were you know it was only two weight classes i think back then it was real weird it was totally legal. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't have to have gloves. The weight classes were, you know, it was only two weight classes I think back then. It was real weird. It was real,

it was weird to be there and, you know, it was interesting and I did it for a couple years and then it just didn't seem like it was going anywhere. It was,

MMA was stagnant. It was removed from cable. You could only get it if you had direct TV. So I did it for two years and then I quit and went back to doing other stuff and the sitcom I was on and stuff. And then the UFC was purchased by Zufa. And then I became friends with Dana and went to a few shows. And then next thing

you know, he asked me to do commentary. It was one of those weird things where I had zero desire to do it. I just was talking to him. I go go, hey, man, do you know about this guy? He's fighting over in Japan. Do you know about this guy? This Russian dude. Do you know about this guy? And he'd be like, no. Who are these people?

He'd write things down and shit. Because I was just balls deep in K-1 and Pride and all that. I was always a huge, huge fan. And my friend Brian from Canada would send me VHS tapes of all these Japanese shows. So I was just a massive fan. The hook and shoot days, I watched all the hook and shoots, all Jeff Osborne's shows. And then somewhere around, I guess it was 2002 when I was on Fear Factor,

they asked me to do commentary, and then I've been doing it ever since. So that's it. That's it. Yeah, that's it. And now, do you ever look at your old stuff? Do you ever consider your mind space then? You mean like the old commentary stuff? Yeah, or just even think about it.

I mean, I try to do my best every time I do it. But honestly, what my contribution is, is so, I don't want to say it's insignificant, but it's not very important. Because what it is, is just me trying to do the best I can to describe what I see in front of me me to make it as entertaining as I can, but also honor what's happening. You're a conduit. Yeah.

You're the person. Yeah, exactly. You're where the flow of information has to come through for the average viewer. Yeah. No, I really admire that about you. I'm not trying to suck up. But your enthusiasm is something I really tried to model myself after. I think that I'm nowhere near the level of commentator that you are,

but when I hear you get excited about stuff, I'm really happy to hear that because it makes me think, okay, as somebody who's communicating what's happening in this sphere that so many people know about but so many people don't really understand what's going on, if somebody's clenched up or they're grabbing a bicep here and why that's important why the way this fighter is shifting their hips is so important you know and and it's it's cool to see that kind of enthusiasm so that i guess other people can get excited about something without even knowing they're getting excited like their their blood pressure comes up a little bit when they're watching and that's neat it's neat to see that because it seems genuine it's all 100 genuine this is the only sport that i really follow i mean i don't really even understand football i don't

know what's going on like when the whistle blows like what happened i don't know what happened and you know people make fun of me all the time for that but i'm like it's not interesting to me when i kickboxing boxing wrestling jujitsu and mma watching all that takes up plenty of time i don't have time for anything else yeah i just don't and the consequences just aren't the same i mean when when i watch a kickboxing match or i watch an mma fight the consequences are so extreme that i'm i'm engaged i'm captivated and with mma you know when i'm watching it and i'm there live and i'm cage side and i'm watching all this stuff go down and I'm not just watching, but I'm also analyzing it. So I'm trying to decipher patterns and I'm data chunking and trying to figure out what could possibly happen.

What am I seeing? Am I projecting this or am I actually seeing this? And just trying to be as empty about it as as I can but also be so enthusiastic about it and then it's like there's moments like uh when Darren Elkins beat Merced Bechtik it's just so hard for me not to cry inside the octagon it was so hard oh I believe it yeah when I was interviewing that dude like I'll start welling up right now when I was interviewing that dude, I'll start welling up right now. When I was interviewing him after that fight, I was like, that guy just emptied out. I mean, emptied out his whole soul. I mean, he took a fucking beating for two and a half rounds and didn't give up an inch. There was nothing. There was no quitting him. None. Zero. And then finally in the third round, he catches that guy. And there's this fucking roar that he did after that fight was stopped. Where he throws his arm back and he's moving around the cage and screaming.

He's covered in blood. Like right there. Oh, yeah. God. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the purest human moments you can ever see, isn't it? Like, I, yeah. Yeah, I have to wipe tears off my eyes right now.

No, I completely, I totally understand that. Like, it's amazing. It's amazing to, I guess, to see your passion for that and to see you are able to witness that and you're still able to translate that kind of passion to people. Well, if it stops being that to me, I'm going to stop doing it. But that was just the last fight. I mean, it doesn't, it just, not only is it not stopped, there's no, like when the fights are going on, there's no waning whatsoever in my enthusiasm. It's not, it hasn't, it hasn't dissipated. And people think like, oh, he's kind of half in now because he doesn't do all the events like that.

That can be further from the truth. I just don't want to travel. No, and also you're going to wear yourself down to a certain point where it's just like you're going to be too sick to actually be able to experience what you need to experience for the viewer to feel what's going on. It's also I have too many interests. Yeah. I do too many. I like to do too many things. I just I just I'm trying to do I'm trying to live five lives, you know. I mean, if you have the opportunity to why not but it does it does

it does wear you thin a little bit did you did you have that kind of passionate connection with comedy like when when you're doing stand-up and when you're when you're in that kind of engagement you feel that flow where you're just almost to the point of emotion and you want to cry or you know not like that that's different because it's life or death. Like that Darren Elkins fight was life or death. It was, uh, it's a different thing. It's not, it's like comedy is fun. It's like joyful. It's silly. It's important in that I know that people come out to see me and they pay money and I want to do my best. It's important that I'm trying to constantly improve. What I do is I, I dump all my material out every two years so i write a special

i perform it i get it tight and then i i record it i put it on whatever on netflix or whatever and then i'm done and then i'm and then i have to write a whole new one and that process is a long and painful process like i did my netflix special in november it came out november so it's been december january february march we're four months in now so it's been December, January, February, March. We're four months in now, so it's on fawn legs. It's just sort of trotting along now. It's not really like a cult. It's not really fully formed yet, but it'll get fully formed. And then once it gets hardened, and once I know that it's ready to rock, like I could smash for an hour, then I chuck it out. And so there's a lot of intensity in that regard, but it's ready to rock, like I could smash for an hour, then I chuck it out.

And so there's a lot of intensity in that regard, but it's a different kind of intensity. It's a fun intensity. There's emotions. There's jokes that don't go well, and it's painful, and I don't enjoy that. But I also know that that's where the growth comes from. Those shitty sets or some of my biggest leaps have come from post sets where it wasn't good. And then I was sort of reengaged and reconnected and got more fired up. And as soon as that stops being important to me, I'll stop doing that too. But it doesn't have the same feeling that fighting has. Fighting has this unique, unique moment, this unique thing to it. Like that Darren Elkins fight where it's like, man,

there's not a whole lot of things like that in the world that you can witness where they're that fucking intense and that I have the honor to try to do service to, to try to. I would say fighting is one of the few arts or sports or however you want to phrase it, experiences in the world where the stakes are immediately high. Yes. They're laid out there. The stakes are high. Win or lose isn't just win or lose to a fighter. And it's not win or lose to a fan,

although you can step back and say that, or you can say, well, I'm just watching this for internet. But you get invested. You get so invested in it. I think that's, I was kind of a lousy matchmaker in that sense that I cared about the girls too much. I really did. And I was just like, I didn't want anybody to lose ever and I was just like you know I was I was terrible with the math

and the organ I'm just I'm a very I very hyperactive like not when I'm in the zone I can pay attention really well but when I'm not it's my mind is everywhere and I can't really focus and I wasn't I wasn't great in that respect. But, man, when you see something come together, though, when you see the fight actually happen, and it does matter who wins or who loses, but it also doesn't. What matters is just watching that physical engagement and these people perform. And they're not performing, but they are performing. Yes.

It's, I don't know, it's incredible. It is an art. You know, like when Meryl Streep was saying that mma is not the arts well listen it's not painting but guess what it's art it's not a damn canvas yeah like i mean it really is like it is i mean it's it's a contained canvas that this is the these actions are being performed it's art it just it may not be what we identify as art but neither is the person in the modern art with the TV or whatever you were talking about earlier. Well, when you see a fight like Misha Tate versus Holly Holm, when Misha Tate takes Holly Holm down in the fifth round, locks that choke in, and Holly doesn't even tap, she's throwing punches in the air as she goes unconscious. And there's people on the outside that would look at that and go, oh, that's just barbaric and it's just violent.

But you see Misha Tate getting that belt strapped around her waist and her reaction. Oh, my gosh. Her whole life. She was the Strikeforce champion. And new. Rousey came. UFC bantamweight champion of the world. Yeah.

She climbed. She summited the highest mountain that she could summit in that time. That was art. Yeah. That was art. The way I describe MMA, my definition is it's high-level problem-solving with dire physical consequences. And that's really what it is. But it's also done in, like, especially when you watch Anderson fight in his prime.

It was beautiful. It was beautiful to watch. Like, there was aesthetics involved It was beautiful to watch. Like there was aesthetics involved that were undeniably artistic. It was just, there's something going on. There was one fight, and I can't recall it right now, where he mimicked all of these different styles. And like he did a capoeira move, and then he did this, and he did that. Like all in one fight. Like he was monkeying around.

I don't mean that in, I guess that sounds racist. I don't mean that. I mean in the playful sense. Isn't that what a ridiculous world we live in? You can't say monkeying around. I don't mean that in, I guess that sounds racist. I don't mean that. I mean in the playful sense. Isn't that what a ridiculous world we live in? You can't say monkeying around if it's a black guy. Well, I mean, I want to respect if something that I say offends somebody, I want to respect their angle of offense. You didn't mean anything.

I didn't. But it's supposed to convey intent. Yeah. And when he's playing around like that, I guess, when he's mimicking other things and you're just like, this is a fight and you're able to just play a completely different game. Well, it was also part of his strategy, and that's what sort of turned against him in the Chris Weidman fight. Because that playing around sort of, it was to mock your danger, you know. I'm sorry, I keep talking over you.

No, please go ahead. And then Nick Diaz did it back to him when he laid down. That was the best. I'm sorry. I keep talking over you. No, please go ahead. Nick Diaz did it back to him when he laid down. I loved that. That was one of my favorite moments in any fight. It wasn't even anybody getting hit. Nick lays down and he puts his hands together. I know. It was like he did Anderson to Anderson. He played. He played the game

and it was amazing. Nick is incredible. When Nick starts talking shit to you, I think Frank Shermock said it best. He's like, you can't believe it's happening. I can't believe this guy's beating my ass and he's talking shit to me while he's doing it. Right? I mean, I remember when he fought Robbie Lawler and he was just constantly talking shit to him while he was fighting. You could see Robbie was like, what is going on here?

It fucks with their heads. It doesn't. It fucks with people's heads it's the complete like that's the that's the oh my god

I know right oh betch yeah no but it's the complete like he's lying down with his hand by his head like he's chilling

that was incredible I mean come on that's one of the funniest moments in the history of fighting it is those are the moments when you're just like, this is somebody who

doesn't give a fuck. Well, he was also trying to get Anderson to engage. And Anderson, the whole thing with Anderson was counter-striking. Patrick Cote sort of exposed that in a lot of ways. Because Patrick Cote didn't lead. He just waited on Anderson. And Anderson was like, I don't like this. No. Yeah. Yeah.

Because, yeah, counter-strikers, they have their own, I guess, their own methodology with being able to read what's happening. And if somebody doesn't initiate, there's a lot of waiting. Yeah. And waiting is, you know, it makes the fans hate you and it makes you hate yourself because you get more frustrated. Your emotions get more intense. Right. It's especially when you get to a fight like Wonderboy Thompson versus Tyron Woodley, where you see this waiting thing and it's just going on and on and on. And, you know, five rounds and you're like, get to the fucking fight. It's not fan friendly. Right. But for the fighters, any wrong move at that point in that waiting game is like that could be death. Yes. Well, loss.

Loss. For sure. For sure. For sure. What excites you now that you're not fighting? Like, what excites you about the sport? Oh, the sport, the stories. I'm a sucker for the stories.

The whole reason I went back to school is I was reading some of those long-form essays the MMA writers were doing. And I was like, you know, and I was doing the matchmaking. I was doing okay at it. I was doing the commentary, but I was like, I'm just not reaching that thing that i was reaching when i was fighting something about me is not being expressed so i i took a class a writing class wrote an essay and um it got me into school and i was like i mean i i mean it's like one of the best schools for writing i would does two things well wrestling and writing and so you get in there yeah was i was just so and i feel alive now like i feel like i'm back where i'm back to being the julie i need to be like where

i'm hungry for something again and it's words and stories and i think that mma is the perfect i don't know avenue for all of these stories because you know everybody at first in old interviews people would just say whatever the fuck they wanted to say and they'd do whatever the fuck they want to do and then everybody'd do whatever the fuck they wanted to do. And then everybody got savvy to the media, right? And they're just like, I'm only going to reveal this. I'm only going to reveal this. And other people played on that, and they're like, I'm going to give more information.

I'm going to give sound bites. And so I think that when it comes to communication and words in MMA and what fighters are giving, there's a lot about what's not being said that can really be explored. And I'd really like to know what that is I want to know what makes a fighter not what makes a fighter decide to fight but what makes a fighter decide to wake up the next day after a fight I you know decide to wake up when yeah I mean it's so emotional it's so crazy and and fighters are such insane people that after a loss I'm surprised actually there aren't more suicides and stuff like that in the sport. And I don't mean to get more super serious, but people take

it to such a high level. And with the amount of pain that they invest in themselves and the amount of emotion towards it, when fighters decide I lost this fight and I lost this fight, but I'm going to get back in, I'm going to do it again. Like if they decide they make the conscious choice to stay, not necessarily, I don't know if it's living in the sense of biologically living or just living in that space still of wanting to be a fighter, of wanting to do that. Some people, oh, it's all I know. All I know, all I've ever known is fighting. So when the fighting is over, what do you do? What do they do?

You know, I was just talking to Uriah Faber about that. But I think that he's a real good role model to young fighters because he's as enthusiastic as about his post fight career you know he's like hey this is a new chapter in my life and i'm excited i'm excited to do different things now i went out with a win you know and i love the fact that he did that he fought in sacramento in his hometown against a tough guy and brad pickett beats brad he's like i'm to go out with a win and I'm on to the next chapter. Thank you all so much. And he gets this giant round of applause and good for him.

Yeah, he came from a place of, I guess of, oh, I think privilege is the wrong word because he built what he built. So it's not privilege, but maybe he came from a place of being able to see a bigger picture. But then you think about

maybe the Joe Fraziers of the sport or people like that when they stopped fighting. What, you know, he built a gym, he did this, he did that.

But like what, I don't know. Fighter stories to me are incredible. The reasons that people fight and the reasons that commentators commentate. The reasons that people

are still so emotionally invested in this sport and what those stories are and what keeps people going. I love that. I think that there's something to the creation we have built.

I mean, the Fertittas and Dana built, like the UFC. But I mean, we as fighters, as a fighter community, as an MMA community, have built something incredible. And I am interested in why we still want to occupy this space or what makes people want to leave it but then come back. And maybe that's just my own personal journey because I can't get out of it. I can't, I can't quit MMA. It has been the greatest love affair.

Well, you used to life at 10. You know, you, I mean, the life going down to level four, it's like, you can't mimic the intensity. You can't. And I'm finding in words and in communication, I'm finding something there. I'm finding that I can, I can access this again. It's harder for me because I have to use my brain more, but I can't just go in there kicking and punching. I have to sit and think about things. I have to formulate these questions for life that I've never even thought about.

But you got to love the questions, like Rilke said. The questions are what's important, not even the answers. It's just finding the right questions to ask and going through that. And I've really rediscovered a love for this sport by stepping away from it. Every commentary job that I do now, every time I'm in there for Invicta, I'm just, this is amazing. And finding that enthusiasm again, it's great. I didn't have that towards the end of my fight career. I was in the UFC because that was the dream. I had to be in the UFC. Why doesn't Invicta have ring card boys? Shannon thinks that's kind of disrespectful. To boys? No, I think that she makes it more of a spectacle.

But it's not for girls? No, I think it's a spectacle for girls too. I have my own opinions about all of that. Like the male gaze and MMA and stuff like that. The male gaze. I love that expression. We are formulated to see things. Ring card girls are a tradition that have come over from boxing and stuff like that and it's never been

questioned. Why do we still have this? I mean, we can put are a tradition that have come over from boxing and stuff like that. And it's never been questioned. Why? You know, like, why do we still have this? I mean, we can put up the ring number on a jumbotron. At the same time, I don't want these women to lose their jobs. I mean, they're part of the brand and the promotional aspect of it. And the ring card girls for Invicta, we call them the Phoenix girls. And they're actually, I mean, Natasha Kingsbury is like a professional runner. I mean, they're serious, high level.

She used to be a ring card girl for the UFC. Yeah, she did. She's so great. She's very yoga-minded. Her husband's awesome, too. I love Kyle. He's really cool. Yeah.

But no, I think that Shannon doesn't want that, I guess, that spectacle-ness. Although I would argue that the ring girls are spectacle in that self. But I don't know. I really like them. Like the girls that work for us, the women who work for us. But it is odd, isn't it? That there's like female ring card girls and an all-female. Like what if we had ring card boys in the UFC for all the men fights?

It would be really weird. If guys were walking around with Speedos, with high-top Reeboks on. If we think about seeing that for the first time, if you visually picture that right now because we're not used to it, yeah, it would be weird. But, I mean, if it was the norm, then I don't think it would be that weird. Bodybuilder dudes. Do you remember King of the Cage when they had that guy who was the king of the cage? Oh, yes. Who was this gigantic, roided up bodybuilder dude who wasn't even fighting.

No, he was the king of the cage. The king of the cage. It didn't make any sense. It was like, what is happening here? What is this supposed to represent? It kind of goes back to branding and the weird ways we do that. Like how we present ourselves to the world or what we're trying to say. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just the ring card girl thing is an odd thing. And it's weird when you have an all-female organization. All-female fighters, but yet you still have girls holding up the cards. I think you should go with dudes. Well, I'll bring that up, but I'm pretty sure Shannon wouldn't be on board with that. Sage Northcutt-looking young fellas. Oh, my gosh. Young and trim.

See, and the thing is, though, when you think about it, though, we think about combat has been so sexualized and stuff like that. It wouldn't be out of the norm no but at the same time what even talking about it we laugh right because it shocks our sensibilities a little so like we're not used to that that's weird so it's i mean what did you think about females when they first started fighting mma what did you think about female fighting like well i had a chance to watch tough Enough in Vegas. I don't remember the event, but Nick the Goat Thompson was on the card, and there was this undercard fight between these two women, and these gals went to war. And we were in the front row, and it was just chaos.

I wish I could remember who was fighting, but it was such a wild and crazy fight that at the end of the fight, everyone in the arena was just standing up screaming and cheering and clapping. And I was with Eddie Bravo and we were both like, dude, I'm a fan of women fighting now. I love it. But were you not before? Like, what was that? Just you had to see them actually in action doing, I guess, being on that level or did

you just it just wasn't on your on your radar before that? There wasn't enough of it to really compare. You had to see it. You know, it has to be presented to you. Now, I'm obviously a huge fan of it compare. You had to see it. It has to be presented to you. Now I'm obviously a huge fan of it, but you have to see it. It's like we weren't really exposed to it because it wasn't in the UFC. So you'd have to go out and seek it. And this is pre-Strikeforce.

So it just wasn't something that people were aware of. And it wasn't like when you first started fighting and you're talking about trying to get a fight. It just wasn't that prevalent. Right, yeah. No, I think And it wasn't like, you know, when you first started fighting and you're talking about trying to get a fight just wasn't that prevalent. Yeah, no, I think that it wasn't. I mean, women didn't even know they could fight, you know, at a certain time. So it's like shifting the attention to that when you can actually watch these dudes who are fighting, you know, you don't have to think of that on your radar. You don't have to seek that out. If you're actually seeing fights, unless it's given to you or unless it's presented to you, you know, then why, you know, why would it be on the radar? What would you think of it? Women fighting was also, in my mind, connected to a certain sense of frustration for the athletes that they had.

Like Lucia Riker could never get Christy Martin to fight her. You know, there was always that thing. Like I had always known Lucia Riker was like the best women boxer and everybody kind of knew. always that thing. Like I had always known Lucia Riker was like the best women boxer and everybody kind of knew, but she couldn't get that fight. Like where everybody would know how good she was. And then everybody's like, Oh, Christy Martin's the best female boxer. I'm like, God damn it. No, she's not like you gotta, she's got to fight this woman from Holland, you know? And then it sort of never happened. And then, you know, there was Mia St. John who was more like a girl's a good boxer and she was cute and she was really working that angle. And then there's Lay St. John, who was more like a girl who was a good boxer, and she was cute, and she was really working that angle.

And then there's Layla Ali, of course, who was Muhammad Ali's daughter. But there was no one who caught fire. There was no like, oh my God, this girl's going to fight this fight. This is going to make, like what we have now. Like what we have now in MMA is incredibly unique. You know, like Valentina Shevchenko and Amanda Nunes. incredibly unique, you know, like Valentina Shevchenko and Amanda Nunes. That is just two super high-level MMA fighters who happen to be women,

who have worked their way up the ladder. Amanda Nunes is obviously the champion. Valentina, though, is just knocking on that fucking door. And that is an exciting, dynamic matchup for the women's bantamweight title. That didn't exist in boxing. There was never that sort of match-up, build-up thing. And by the way, there's other people waiting past Valentina. You know, there's contenders. It's real.

And there's contenders at strawweight as well. It's real. And so I think that there was always this sort of thing that was connected with women fighting, like that it wasn't legit, that it was kind of like the WNBA. As good as an athlete, as some of those players are, no one

gives a fuck in this country. It just doesn't catch on. I'm sure they give a fuck and they're probably mad that I'm saying that, but you know what I'm saying. I know what you mean. Marketing-wise, for some for whatever reason, it wasn't seen as, it's not seen as an equal sphere to the NBA. Right. And what's been unique about female fighters in MMA

is that because they can share the same octagon on the same night, because they're in the same playing field, then there's a chance to see more of an equal setting. A hundred percent. Yeah, I think that's hugely important. I mean, when you have someone like Ronda Rousey, who's headlining a massive card, and the pay-per-view sells 1.5 million buys, that is gigantic for women's combat sport, for combat sports in general.

And it's unprecedented. Anybody who says it's not is crazy. Before Ronda Rousey came along, there had never been an athlete like that, that had been dominating in a combat sport and on a worldwide scale where everybody knew who she was. It's totally uncharted territory. She was the mainstream appeal of it. Somehow with what she presented, well, she's an incredible person. But with what she presented, she had the package that transcended, oh, this is a female fighter. It was Ronda Rousey is a fighter.

And, of course, they focused on her femininity. They focused on her being a female. But at the same time, I mean, she was doing way better than the men when it came to universal appeal and stuff like that. Like there was something that she crossed. Well,

she was a unique thing. What is this unique thing? Yeah. And I think that that just did not exist. I mean, Gina Carano sort of caught it a little bit, but she was gone before it really caught fire, you know?

And then when she lost a cyborg, there was a there was a lot of like weird feelings about that because there's all these speculations. The cyborg was on drugs and then they looked at Gina Carano and she was all beat up afterwards. And that left this sort of weird taste in people's eyes. I understand that. And I think that their eyes were tasty. No, I think that there's something to that. And I think that... Tasting their eyes? Their eyes are tasty. No, I think that there's something to that. I think it's unfortunate because I'm like, I know Chris Cyborg. You know, I was the matchmaker, you know, with Invicta when she was fighting for us.

And I was there for her weight cuts and I saw some of her struggles. And what a kind, kind person she is. Just a genuinely kind person. But then there's this persona of toughness and her saying this kind of thing to Rhonda or she's saying this to gina and then they're saying it back and it's this that you know and it's just like for some reason um i never thought she got the um the respect that was due but at the same time then she did fail a drug test so it was like ah like unfortunately you carry the burden of having your entire legacy be questioned when you mess up like that but we know what the human body looks like.

You know, you know what a female body looks like. And you know what someone looks like when they most likely have been introducing male hormones into a female body. I don't. You know, I understand what you're saying because we know what we think is normal or what, you know, what a female body is like. But I would say that we know what a male body looks like too. Yeah.

Without hormones. Yeah. And I mean, you look at somebody who's like perfect physique, sage Northcutt. I mean, is everybody speculating that he's on steroids because he looks a certain way? Because I met the kid when he was a kid and he looked like that. The problem in that line of thinking is that he's a male. Right. And that he has natural testosterone and that you can accentuate natural testosterone pretty significantly, especially if you're someone like a Kevin Randleman.

Right. Or, you know, like Marvin Eastman, who just has this extreme mesomorphic build. There's a lot of people that are built that way that don't do anything illegal. There's not a lot of women that are. Yeah. You know, again, when we do the eye test like that, like I, I completely understand that. My, um, I guess I wanted to believe that I wanted to believe that Cyborg was drug free.

And now I believe that she is, I believe that she's currently, yeah, I believe that she's whatever happened in that time in 2011, she has rectified it. She's passed all of her drug. I guess something happened. I'm not really, cause it was with the UFC with some kind of test, but it turned out it was with her birth control pills or something. What, more recently? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, something happened with her birth control or something. Something happened there, but. No, it's spironolactone. Spironolactone. And which is a DHT inhibitor or dihydrotestosterone inhibitor that is used for a bunch of different

reasons. It's used as a, It's used as a diuretic. It's used for people combating the effects of anabolic steroids for females combating the effect. It's used for cysts. It's used for a bunch of different possible reasons to use it. I think I've known somebody who's been on that for cystic acne before, so I don't understand what happened in all of that. And I would love to, I need to read about it.

I'd love to know more about it. It wasn't in my sphere of interest exactly. But, you know, pre-2011 drug test, I wanted to believe she was natural because I wanted to believe in her and believe that somebody could be that vicious and ferocious and wonderful like that and take the idea of women

fighting to a different level. And when she tested positive for, for the, um, it was a, Stan's yes. Stan's something in 2011. So whatever. Yeah. And then, you know, and then I was just, I was heartbroken because first of all, you know, it was just like, there was this, I didn't believe anymore. And then I got to meet her actually in a professional setting. And I got to know her as a person. And you realize that when you know people, it's a lot more nuanced. I believe in you as a person. You know what I mean?

Well, I've believed in a lot of guys that turned out to be taking steroids. Yeah. And it's weird to associate. I guess I never. Well, you're a nice person. You're kind. You wish for the best. I do.

But I also wish for the best for women all the time. And that we're not going to mess up. Right.'re kind. You wish for the best. I do, but I also wish for the best for women all the time and that we're not going to mess up. Right. But if you do wish for the best for women, wouldn't you definitely want to take a hard stance against someone who's introducing male hormones into a female body? And also the problem with that is a lot of the effects are permanent. A lot of the effects of a woman altering her physiology with male hormones. There's a certain amount of those effects. And this is also argued against men taking steroids. There's a certain amount, and there's been tests about this.

This isn't just speculation. That certain amount of physiological changes are permanent when you take steroids. Because you're introducing these hyper human levels of testosterone to a male system. And things change. Bone density changes. The shape of your body changes the the tendon strength changes right and your your testicles shrink and certainly because you you don't have the ability to like produce that that comes back like the the testicular atrophy it's like it's really the shutdown of the endocrine system but that comes back and when it comes back there's a certain amount of the improvements that you've received because of steroids that you will keep forever. Oh, really? So even when you're in that post-steroid area?

Yes. Which is one of the things that infuriates people that have been clean their whole life is that someone can test positive and then they continue on their career, even if they are not taking steroids now, they have a benefit. They have a permanent benefit of taking those illegal drugs. That sucks. Yes. I mean, there's nothing like I can say like that would champion that being a good thing. It's not a good thing. But I will say that she did not test positive the entire, you know, since 2011.

And so if there was that advantage in something like that, we saw somebody like Irina Baer in kickboxing still work against that and still find victory. So I don't know. But should someone have to work against that? First of all, the Yarina Barj fight was a testament to Cyborg's courage and fighting spirit that she took that fight because nobody wanted to fight Yarina for a long time. And if you don't know who Yarina Barj is, if you watch her Muay Thai fight, she's some ungodly number of fights she's had. She's a multiple-time

world champion, and she's just so stunningly technical as a fighter. But, you know, you look at them physically, they look very, very different. You know, Cyborg's just this attacker, berserker style, and fought a very good fight against a girl that nobody wanted to fight. It was a wonderful fight. Yeah, it was a fantastic fight. You know, that's like one of those fights, evenerker style, and fought a very good fight. She did. It was incredible. A girl that nobody wanted to fight.

It was a wonderful fight. Yeah, it was a fantastic fight. You know, that's like one of those fights, even in a loss, like... Her stock came up. Yeah, you can't... Yeah, Cyborg thinks I hate her. Look, I think she's awesome. I'm a fan, and I tweeted this many times along, that the UFC needs to make a 145-pound women's division.

But there's also some realities that you have to address, and those realities have to be addressed for the other women that haven't done anything as well to look up for them. I think you're right about that. I think that when people test positive, I think that the penalties have to be harsh. They have to be hard. And I don't know what's going on with the new testing and stuff like that. I'm not in the know when it comes to the UFC. I'm no longer on a team. You know what I mean?

It's like everything I do, I read through MMA media now. So I don't know who's testing what and what's going on. But I will say that the men had been doing it for so long as well. So should men who were clean have to have fought against men who were dirty? Very good question. And a lot of people think they shouldn't. Yeah. So it's, I don't know what we do about clean slating it at this point.

And it's also, is it the same thing? Is a man taking male hormones the same as a woman taking male hormones? Well, if the man already has the male hormones, right? Wouldn't that be even more of an increase than a woman taking? Because if a woman, I mean. No. Okay. No, because a woman's adjusting her physiology and becoming masculine, whereas a man is becoming more masculine.

There's a shift literally in the body structure that happens to women when they start taking testosterone. That's why a transgender man goes from a woman to a man, all of a sudden grows a beard like Chaz Bono, changes the shape of your face, changes the tone of your voice, your voice gets deeper. I mean, so many different factors play into it. I mean, it really depends on, there's no, there's also,

there's a rainbow, like a broad spectrum of dosages. Like who knows how much you're taking, how long you're taking it for. And then there's also massive negative consequences health-wise for women. That's what's, I mean, it's already hell on your body to fight. And it's hell on your body to be a female athlete. In many ways, it's wonderful and encouraging, but you're right. And I, again, I don't have an answer for that.

I don't think there's a clean slate. I do think that Chris Cyborg is in the position right now with her career. And with the things that have been questioned about her, the things that have been done, she has actually the opportunity now to really spearhead making it all clean. And coming forward with whatever happened in the past with the Spirazol. I forgot the name of the spray. Spironolactone. That's less of a concern because that's not really a performance enhancing drug.

The Spironolactone is not performance enhancing. It's not like the other stuff was. It wasn't a failed test then? It's not prohibited or it is prohibited, but she could get a therapeutic use exemption. Did she? I think she did, didn't she? If you believe they're doing that or in the process of trying to do that. Maybe it has been cleared.

But what that means is, look, it's not hurting anybody she competes against. It's not that. It's just they don't like people taking it because it can mask some of the effects of androgens in the female body. And it also, as a diuretic, diuretics are illegal because diuretics also can mask some of the, um, potential properties of testosterone or hormones or. That's why they did away with all the,

the IV rehydration. Yes. I was the only person who liked IV rehydration. You're the only one. No, I think there's a lot of people who liked it. I loved it. And I,

I mean, I was clean. I hate to say that I was clean my whole life, but I was possibly because nobody ever offered me anything. If somebody offered you steroids, you think you would have taken it? I don't know. I look back now and I'm like, I wonder. Because I wonder how many other women were.

Yeah. What if it was back in the day, like the Wild West, like Pride days? Like Pride days were the Wild West. Like during Pride, like I talked to Ensign Inouye. He described about his contract literally in capital letters said, we will not test you for steroids. And Ensign was laughing about it. It's like fucking everybody was on shit back then. You know, to that question, I think I probably would have if I'd have been offered it.

I don't know. But then you think about that and then you think about, OK, 2011 was just on the cusp of being the Wild West, right? Okay, 2011 was just on the cusp of being the Wild West, right? So if she did take steroids, if she was on something, isn't that just what everybody else was trying to do? I don't know. Some people were. I don't think Gina was doing it. I don't think Gina Carano was doing it. I don't think Gina did it at all, no.

But some women definitely did, for sure. I think they did. I mean, you look at the old pictures, the fighters, the generation before me, and I'm not throwing out accusations. I'm just saying people with musculature, like Becky Levi and people like that, you kind of wonder like, okay, how, how much of that was, you know? Sure. Well, I know girls that just compete in jujitsu tournaments that do testosterone. I mean, they just want to be stronger and better and there's no money in it. They're just trying to get an edge and it's kind of weird. You know, it's, it's weird. It's, you know, they're, it's amateur

and no one's testing and they say everyone's doing it. So they're doing it. So you go, okay, like I got no position on this. I mean, I don't know, I don't know what to say, but when it comes to MMA and when it comes to professional sports and back then, if it was the wild West, I'm sure a lot of people were doing it, you know, but Chris became sort of the poster girl when she looked the part and then tested positive. Right, right. What, I mean, what do we do with that now?

That's a good question. What do we do with that now? What do you do with it? I think she's a phenomenal woman. I think she's a kind and good woman and a wonderful fighter for people to look up to. So I don't, I don't know what you do with that now. I think that what has to go on the table is just we take everything by what happens today. And if a person doesn't test positive, we take them at their word.

Yeah. The real problem, though, with what's going on today is they're offering these massively steep, steep sentences for people and suspensions for people. So like first, if you get caught, I think the first suspension is like two years. And then if you get caught again, it's even deeper. And then three years, it's three times. If you get caught a third time, it's like life. You're done. Yeah.

Like Vanderlei Silva one is the most disturbing one to me because he ran away from a test and they banned him for life. Like that is fucking, that's abusive. Yeah. You got to wonder how many other fighters have run away from it, but it just wasn't as public. Like, you know? Sure.

Well, not only that, but when you talk to Chael Sonnen about how sketchy the USADA people were when they came to him, like they made him do it in a broom closet and give boys like this. Is this sterile? Like, who are you? Do you have an ID? Like they don't even, they don't want to give you ID. They just want to test right away and you just have to listen to them. I kind of understand in the case of him where they may be trying to hawk i am a little bit more just because of his past you know yeah yeah but it is um i don't know i i don't know when it comes to regulation who regulates the regulators like that

is the question right like that's the question yeah but at the same time we don't want this taken away from us right like this whole thing, the moments of passion, the Darren Elkins moments, we don't want that taken away from us. And to have that soured by knowing that that person was cheating, was cheating,

that, you know, it's, I think there's a huge emotional investment to see a clean sport. Well, how about the grayest of gray areas, which is Vitor Belfort? Yeah. They let him. Yeah.

They let him. I mean, he was a testosterone use exemption, and when he was doing it, holy shit, was he fucking terrifying. He looked like 19-year-old Vito again. He looked crazier than 19-year-old Vito. He looked like a demon. I mean, Vito would come out and just

starch everybody. He was smashing people. Wheel kick Luke Rockhold. We've never seen him throw a wheel kick in his life. He threw two wheel kicks in his entire career. Look at the pictures of him. This is 2007 on the left and 2000 or 2012 in the left and 2017 on the right. Fucking a. That poor guy though. Can you imagine being on that level? I mean, do you take testosterone? Yeah. So can you imagine being on that level where you feel like your body is in a certain, it can perform a certain way and then have that taken away from

you and then like just having to compete with that and then compete with whatever's going on in your mind too. Well, there's the thing is that with youth is, you know, you have all this athletic ability, you have all this strength and speed, but you don't have any experience and wisdom. And then as you gain experience and wisdom, father time slowly takes away your physical gifts to the point where you're trying to like Bernard Hopkins when he fought Joe Smith. There was that weird moment where you realize like, oh, we've passed the point here where your knowledge and your hard work and discipline makes up for the fact that your body's deteriorating. And you're fighting this young bulldog who's just an animal. He went through the ropes. Yeah, it fell on his head. It's horrible.

It really made me think about the way boxing rings are set up. How the fuck is it so easy to fall through the ropes? And why is there no one there to see that happening and catch them? Like, he fell on his head. Didn't know where the fuck he was. Didn't know what was going on. So dangerous. So dangerous.

I mean, he could have died there. The way he fell back to, he literally fell head first and landed on the ground. And I'm assuming it was concrete. I mean, and didn't know what happened, didn't know where he was, thought he got pushed out of the ring, didn't know he got knocked out. He was just so out of it. There comes the time when we have to recognize our mortality. And unfortunately, fighters are not people to do that. Because you're trained not to.

You're like, he didn't have to recognize it. Yeah. Well, then you look at this. Because you're trained not to. Yeah. You're like, he didn't have to recognize it for a couple of years. Yeah. They turned back the time. I mean, you went from Vitor Belfort, who fought Rich Franklin, Vitor Belfort, who fought Sexyama. And, you know, you look good. But then when he got on the testosterone, it's like all of a sudden you have the phenom, this demon. That therapeutic use exemption stuff, it seemed to spike at a certain time for a lot of people. Why is that?

As soon as people found out it was legal. Oh, yeah. There was a bunch of shady-ass doctors. I know some people who use some shady-ass doctors, and what the doctor would literally tell them is you take testosterone for a short amount of time, take a lot of it, get your system hooked on it, then get off of it, and then get tested. So then your system hooked on it, then get off of it and

then get tested. So then they would go, well, it's got low testosterone. Because your body isn't producing it. Because your body, you jolted it down with like 10 weeks of high level test. And then you say, oh, I'm feeling a little run down and maybe I have something wrong with me. I have a medical condition. And it's like a lot of it was just guys who take steroids and their body had stopped

producing it naturally. And then they got a therapeutic use exemption and they were shooting it up all the time. And then they were going in there and they're 27 years old. So the benefits of the previous steroid use didn't linger to the point that, or was it a mental thing? Well, the benefits, if their endocrine system caught up, say if they did a certain amount of cycles and they gained a certain amount of strength, they would keep some of that benefit permanently. But when their endocrine system crashed because they had taken all the steroids and then they got off of it, that's when they can test. And the test shows low testosterone. That's all they needed to show.

They didn't need to show. So they could still physically perform to a higher level than they could have if they've never done steroids in the first place. Probably. But while they're at a low testosterone, they're going to experience very significant decreases in endurance and stamina and your intensity. All that's going to be down. Your body's like really depressed. Like that's one of the things that happens to men when they get head injuries and traumatic brain injuries cause a disruption in the pituitary gland, which causes your body to produce less testosterone, which oftentimes leads to soldiers, football players, fighters becoming severely depressed.

And oftentimes they lean towards alcoholism and drug addiction, and a lot of that is trying to combat that depression. Actually, that makes a great deal of sense. I was never tested to the extent of this, but when I quit fighting, I was put on estrogen because I have a really messed up reproductive system. I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. Whatever it is, I was put on a birth control pill with very high estrogen, and that led me to have to go on antidepressants, which led me to have to go into this, which let me, yeah, it was just the, the amount of estrogen. Why did that lead you to, what happened there? I wanted to have babies really badly. And, um, I had horrible, not to be too, whatever we're talking about. You mean while you got on the- While I was, while I was fighting, I, um, I had horrible periods.

Like I would have periods for an entire month and stuff like that while I was fighting. Yeah. Like when my body fat lowered for whatever reason, you know, women are supposed to stop and they're supposed to enter a menorrhea, you know, but for me it was different. And I would, I was just like, I was bleeding all the time. Like it was a, it was a long 10 years, but it's just like, I, you know, like my body was really, really weird. And so when I stopped fighting, I was like, I was used, I was sick of being in pain. I was sick of this and that. I was like, I don't have to, um, I didn't want to put any chemicals into my body when I was fighting. Right. I was really worried about that. Like worried

about if that would make me gain weight if I went on the birth control pill or something like that, you know? So when I quit fighting, you know, I went to a gynecologist and she put me on and then it just, I crashed. Like, I don't know which birth control pill it was, but I was severely depressed when I quit fighting. So the birth control pills caused depression. It regulated me. I don't know if it caused depression, but I would say that the changing chemicals in my body post fight. So I could, you can't just say it's like this one thing, but I would say heightened estrogen. Probably I was all of a sudden eating carbs again for the first time. And for, you know what I mean? A lot of things were different. I wasn't exercising however many hours a day, everything in my life

was different, but I will say, you know, I put on 30 pounds within six months of retiring. Wow. Yeah, it was insane. I mean, I have breasts now, which is a great thing, but it wasn't something I was used to for a decade. And, you know, it's so funny about how when your reproductive chemicals or when all that gets messed up, how that actually messes with your brain as well. Because I can understand these men coming off of head injuries, if they're having a decreased chemical, like testosterone or whatever it is, I can understand that actual weirdness, like taking part, and that affecting their brains severely. Yeah, and the shutdown of the endocrine system, post-steroid cycles,

has led a lot of guys to depression. They even think it's led people to suicide. And if you're inclined towards depression in the first place, I'm sure it probably gets accentuated by those things. Oh, yeah. There's a big history

of depression in my family. I went through a really rough time. And then, remarkably, I discovered writing and that was great and it's led me on a completely different path.

But, yeah, post-fighting, there's something about that and it's not even, I mean, I think the chemicals are a great, I'm not a doctor and I'm not a scientist. That's my family. They're all scientists and shit.

I don't know any of it. Like, I don't know the science behind it exactly. But I will say that that, I don't know that it's necessarily always chemical. I think that there's a big part of it. It's also purposeful. I think when you don't have a purpose, when you don't have a goal and something to strive for, then your body reacts to that as well and your brain reacts to that as well. So it's probably that as well. Yeah, I think it's something.

And then the exercise thing too. I'm sure that played a big factor. Yeah. The lack of exercise or the much greatly reduced schedule. Yeah, it's different. You can run three miles a day, but it's not the same as sparring every other day or whatever you're doing or doing jujitsu twice a day or whatever it is. So much of probably what depression is is a giant combination of factors. Yeah. I think, yeah. I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not a, I have a great therapist, but I'm not, you know, I can't tell you what that is. I, I, but I can say that, um, there is something to having all of that in

balance. Um, having being chemically, I guess, physiologically in balance with the way your body's supposed to be and then have your um exercise the way it's supposed to be and then have your purpose the way it's supposed to be and it's such a weird balance as human beings that when any of those things get thrown out of whack sure you're you're headed for trouble yeah and friendships family you know yeah all the the different relationships that you keep in your life i saw this really interesting clip from this guy and he was talking about he's a um a rapper i think he was but he's talking about his mental diet and the way he looked at it like it was like that people are really concentrating constantly about what they eat but they're not concentrating

constantly about what they take in their mind and that like you should really be aware of your mental diet too you know that if you snack on too much junk food mentally it'll weaken your mind you know i think that makes sense i think that makes sense yeah i think that we don't push ourselves mentally a lot and when it comes to that i i think honestly it's just coming down to i mean it's not a cure-all but reading if you just, if you just sit and force yourself to read and you actually engage with a text, all of a sudden you realize something is happening in your brain. You're creating space for more thought in your brain. But also you can't be exposed to too much bullshit. And who knows what's bullshit and what's not bullshit? I mean, there has to be a discernment somewhere along the

line. Some sort of like, I guess, I don't know, literary consciousness or something like that where you know that, I mean, I'm addicted to Twitter. Are you? Oh, I love Twitter.

I love it. And I know that I'm a giant bitch on there and I don't care. I am. How are you a bitch? Oh, I'm always telling people to go fuck themselves.

Always. Why are you doing that? Because it's so enjoyable to me. It's like playing a game. And I, you know, the part of me is like, I hate that part of myself, but I also really like it because I think I'm becoming, it's, to me, it's not, I'm not a brand.

There's no Julie Kedzie fighter who has to impress anybody anymore. Like, you know, there's, granted, I represent Invicta to a certain extent, but I know, I fully understand that Shannon could fire me if I say something just outrageous and horrible. She wouldn't. She's a wonderful person. And I'm no longer behind the scenes there. I'm just, I'm understand that Shannon could fire me if I say something just outrageous and horrible. She wouldn't. She's a wonderful person.

And I'm no longer behind the scenes there. I'm just, I'm a commentator. I'm not somebody making any decisions with the company. Right. But I don't know. When it comes to Twitter, I... So what do you do? You get in flame wars with people?

Like someone says some stupid shit to you and you fight back? I kind of enjoy when people insult me and I go after them. Yeah, but I do feel my brain deteriorating a little bit when they do that. You know, it's just like, okay, I need to stop. I need to put this down now. But, you know, when they come at me, they're just like, you're a feminazi. You're this. I'm just like, yeah, come on.

Who says that? Why do they say you're a feminazi? Oh, because I'm very outspoken being a feminist. I'm very, you know, when I talk about socialism, when I talk about I hate Donald Trump, when I talk about this, you know. Yeah, but I would never label you in like, you're just a genuine person, like who happens to be a woman who believes what you believe. Like you, you're not like sexist. You're not like anti-male or anything. No, I love men. I, I love men. I believe you. Settle down. But the thing is, um, I am pro woman to a certain extent. I mean,

when it comes to MMA, I'm more interested in what's going on with women in the sport than with men. That's just where I'm oriented. That's my career. Sure, I mean, that's part of your job. But, well, I don't know. There's this association that, first of all, the whole feminazi label is just, I mean, that's the first thing. Like I said, yeah, I'm really proud to be a feminist. And then people are just, oh, that means you hate men.

You think they're all rapists. And I'm like, no. That discredits men so much. Like, well it's silly and the term feminist has been so co-opted by negative thoughts so many people have this negative connotation they attach to it of course and it's movements that you know third wave feminism this you know there's certain when whenever the real fucking problem male feminists they. They've ruined it. Those fucking twats. You know, it's... Men ruin everything.

I know. They've even ruined feminism. That's funny. I know. I know. Jamie was on here and he was a friend of mine and something weird happened with that guy. I don't know what's going on with his life right now. Jamie Kilsey?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Not good. I don't know what's going on. I don't want to speculate on any of that, but we were really good friends for a while. And, you know, I know his... Like, he was very disliked as a male feminist quote-unquote male and that's well it's because everybody thought that he was what he just got accused of being right and they're just

poonhounds that are taking that angle i i that is an interesting i honestly think sometimes people are just assholes who want sex and i also think sometimes people are manipulative assholes who want sex i don't see him as a manipulative person but again i might you didn't have anything to offer him yeah you know probably not i didn't interact yeah but i don't know either you know i don't i think people are a bunch of different things depending on who they are what time of the day i think it'd be nice if the whole world was egalitarian and if we all looked at people as just treating them who they are based on their

character and their personality and not categorizing them so specifically like oh you are a woman so you are less or you are a man and you are more or vice versa. Yeah but when you say male feminist and you're like that's the problem I mean are you joking when you say that or are you because yeah okay good. Yes I'm joking yes.

Because I'm like No I mean it's the problem is there's a lot of people joking when you say that are you or because yeah okay good because i'm like because i mean no i mean it's it's the problem is there's a lot of people that virtue signal yeah and a lot of people that are posturing and a lot of people that are putting a label on themselves to try to make themselves seem like they're in a higher moral high ground than the rest of the folks around them and that's the motivation for doing it and that becomes transparent and people get angry at that they recognize what it is. So when someone like Jamie Kilstein slips up after all these years of virtual signaling,

they're like, ah, I knew it, you fuck. But does that really negate some of the good things that he's done if he's influenced some men? I don't know. What are the good things? I don't know. If he's maybe said, oh, hey, a woman is actually a person. Well, absolutely. Who the fuck doesn't think a woman is a person?

Well, a lot of people on my Twitter timeline. Let me tell you something. Those people, if there's a person out there that doesn't think that a woman's a person, fucking Jamie Kilstein is not going to change their opinion. He's just going to broadcast it and let everybody know that's how he thinks. And he's going to get all this love and people are going to send him all these likes and they're going to give him thumbs up and say nice things to him on Twitter. And that may or may not be a good thing. It's more a good thing than a bad thing. It's not a bad thing, but you're not going to change some asshole's opinion by saying something like that. I don't know that

you are, but I don't know. Have you changed any asshole's opinion with any of your things? If you've come out and said something, have you, do you think you've changed people's opinions? I think people's opinions change if they value what you're saying, if they believe that you're being truthful and if what you're saying is compelling enough for them to reconsider the way they look at things. It is possible, but it's not a hundred percent. And it's not the motivation behind doing things in the first place. I'm not trying, I don't ever try to change people's opinions, but I do try to express myself as cleanly and as accurately and as honestly as I can. And I think that, in my opinion, in my experience, when I've heard people like you talking about your life, like you just talking about your life in this podcast, I take that in and I know it's pure and it'll make me consider. And I know it's pure and it'll make me consider every little, everything that a person says, every sentence, every conversation that you have with someone where they're being real with you. It adds more knowledge to your database of human interaction and the way people behave and think.

I think in that way, it does slowly make you consider more things about people. And that adds to the overall surface area of knowledge that you have about people in general. Absolutely. Do you, in your position, because you have considerable influence, do you worry about having people kind of latch on things hive-minded and go a direction? Do you feel a responsibility, I guess, to people? I definitely feel a responsibility in not manipulating them. And I definitely feel a responsibility in not taking advantage of that, not starting a cult or something like that. Yeah, I mean, but the good part about it is

if you don't need anything from anybody, like you're not trying to get people to send you $50 a month for the fucking platinum plan where you get access to secret messages from L. Ron Hubbard or whatever. But you know what I mean? It's like you can take advantage of people in certain ways. And I think that's a real issue with any sort of hive mind thinking, right?

Yeah, I don't know where I get – this is fascinating. I guess religion and things like that always trouble me. And that hive mind mentality, that troubles me. It troubles me. And that hive-minded mentality, that troubles me. It troubles me. Yeah, it should. I mean, to be honest, it troubles me that Alex Jones was on here or somebody who kind of leads that sort of thing. Yes, but when Alex Jones was on here,

I think people got to understand Alex Jones way more after me getting him drunk and stoned and having to talk about interdimensional child molesters. You get to see it, like, oh, this is kind of like a half-wacky show where he's also commenting on the craziness of the world. But you got to see who he really is, the guy that I've known for almost 20 years. Like, that's what I wanted to do by having him on. Like, people are like, why are you friends with that guy?

I'm like, watch. Watch what happens. We'll get him fucked up. We're going to have some fun. And you realize, like, oh, this guy is like, he's kind of wacky. Like, half of what he's doing is almost like a show it's a show right it's a brand right well it's like it is and it is and that's kind of him but if people are buying into that but what are they buying into that's false and

what are they buying into that's true unfortunately a lot of what alex jones has been presenting over these years is actually true like what what? Like agent provocateurs. Like when they have peaceful protests, they'll send in people to smash windows and they're wearing government issue boots and they get rounded up and they don't wind up being prosecuted because they were literally brought in by the police to turn a peaceful protest into a violent protest. Like the people that took over Occupy Wall Street and undercover cops that were doing all this fucking crazy, chaotic, violent shit to get people to move in and break up these camps and break up these protests when they were all legal. Alex Jones sort of exposed all that stuff first.

When he puts his support, and I don't want to be, I actually don't want to be in this, I'm not trying to be controversial, honestly. I'm just like following conversation. Express yourself. be in this weird i'm not trying to be controversial honestly i'm just like no following conversation express yourself when he puts his support behind people like donald trump who is actually pushing these sorts of agendas what sorts of like the the anti-protesting like trying to change the law so that you can run over protesters when they're peacefully pro things like that i don't know he's changing the laws but these things are coming up what is that it's something uh it's it was constant or Michigan. There's something like that. They're trying to put a thing into.

One of them farm states. Whatever it is. Yeah, I know. And I'm so bad because when I follow my train of thought, then I can never have citations and it drives me bananas because I don't want to present information as speculation. Well, I think that people are trying to stop people from violating other people's rights. Right. But is a person's right to drive a car down a street more important than a person's right to express themselves by saying, I don't want this to happen.

I am willfully challenging the law right here in a peaceful way. But it's not peaceful if your grandpa is dying and you need to get to the hospital and some asshole wants to stand in front of him with a macrame hat on with a, you know, I'm a male feminist sign. Right. But is that, what instance are you quoting specifically? We are talking about blocking people in the road. It doesn't help anyone. No, it doesn't help anyone. I mean, I've been arrested for political protests before,

and I was very aware I was crossing a line onto here. I was doing something. I was going to be arrested for it, but it was the voices behind me and the collective voices together that were doing something, not knowing that they were going to be arrested, knowing that the part about going to jail and being able to write about it or being able to understand that you were taking a stance on something,

you're just trying to bring attention to something that you think is wrong. Well, what were you arrested for? Oh, it was many years ago, and all the military guys already hate me, but it was the School of the Americas. I was 18. I think I got arrested twice, 18 or 19. It was the School of the Americas when they were teaching the counterinsurgency techniques down in Fort Benning, Georgia. I'm banned for life there.

But I was very religious then. I was very into social justice. I was really like, I wanted to be a nun and I wanted to change the world. And I wanted people to not kill each other anymore. And I wanted us not to fund military groups in South America who were slaughtering people. At the same time, it was protesting. I was stepping deliberately onto a military base and saying, no, I don't want this to happen anymore. I'm peacefully going to go with you. You're arresting me. I know my rights. And the soldiers...

Okay, well, let's unpack that. Because what you did there was you made a, there's a political protest. You went to the scene of where you think these terrible things are taking place. And you took a stand knowing you were going to get arrested and that it was going to bring media attention to this. There's a big difference between that and you deciding we're going to block the 101 because Black Lives Matter. You know, that doesn't have anything to do with all those people that were driving to work.

You're violating their rights to pass. You're violating their space. You're stopping them from being able to move freely. You're also calling a great deal of attention to it, aren't you? But you're doing it in a way that inconveniences and puts people in danger, and it's not necessary. You could do it in a public space. You could do it in places where you're allowed to protest. You could do it, and you could still get your voice out and still get your message out and not block traffic on the highway.

The blocking traffic on the highway is attention-whoring, and it's attention-whoring in a very dangerous way because you are stopping people from getting to medication. You're stopping people from getting medical treatment. People can be in the middle of giving birth. There's a lot of shit that happens. You fuck with people's ability to travel and move around. We rely on that. It's extremely significant.

So when you just decide that, you know, you, whatever, I want transgender rights for the bathroom. Let's block this fucking highway. Just because you think you can get attention doing something like that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. There are ways to get attention doing things that are lawful and there's ways that are noble and then there's blocking the fucking highway like a baby. Are they still working though? I'm not just talking about a highway. Are they still working though? I'm not just talking about a highway. Are they working?

Are bringing attention to things? I mean, is that still working? The Dakota pipeline and stuff like that when people were protesting in a peaceful way? Well, it certainly did. It shut it down. It shut it down, but it just, I mean, it's back. Trump got an office and things change.

It's back. And I don't even know if that's the best example of it. Well, it is a good example because it was peaceful protesting and it did get a lot of attention, including me and a lot of other people who tweeted about it and put up links about it and let people know about it and talked about it on

the podcast. Yeah, I mean, it does get attention. It does. It's a different thing, though. I understand what you're saying. The Dakota Pipeline, they're protesting there. Yeah. I'm not disregarding what you're saying about the highways and stuff like that because that wouldn't be the kind of protest that I would want to be a part of.

That's not the kind of thing I would want to enact. Now, did I believe in, do I believe in the Black Lives Matter movement? Yes, to a certain extent. I also believe in police officer training and better training for police officers in those in situations of high stress. I think that there's so much nuance to what's going on. Absolutely. And there's so much carried on. And the highway blocking and the stuff like that, you're giving very, very good counter arguments to this.

But I will say that there's also something, in effect, when you can make the loudest noise and you know something is wrong, isn't it your responsibility to try and fix things? Not by stopping the highway. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe things? Not by stopping the highway. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe it's not by stopping the highway. But if people are so determined to be against what you're saying, they're so enrooted. People have to make noise in the strangest ways.

They have to do what people are very self-righteous and they think that you have to listen to them and you don't want to listen to them. No, you don't. You're right as an American to not have to listen to someone's protest as much as it's your right as an American to protest. It is. You can't force someone to listen to you because you think you're right. And that's what you're doing by standing in front of someone on the highway and blocking their passage. Okay, but getting beyond the highway thing. Because, again, what you're bringing up—

Well, that's the only thing that I have an issue with. Okay, okay. Literally, I have no problem with protesting. I think, but when you're protesting on the highway and you're blocking traffic, you're a cunt. I mean, that's a shitty way to do it. I cannot disagree with you to a certain extent where it is a very inconvenient thing and it can be a dangerous thing. And I don't think any protesting should endanger people's lives at all. By the way, I hate marathons, too, for the same reason.

Yeah, well, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. But at least those are scheduled. I don't think that that's cause to be able to have the right to run somebody over and kill them. No. You shouldn't have the right to run someone over and kill them. I don't think somebody's life is not worth something because they're expressing themselves in a way that you disagree with. But that's not necessarily what the law is saying.

The law is saying that you exonerate someone responsibility if someone jumps in front of your car and tries to stop you. And that makes a great deal of sense. People smash their car windows because they're trying to get through some sort of a protest line. And they don't have anything to do with what the protest is. They just want to get out of there. They're in their car and they're stuck.

And maybe they have their kid with them. And the kid's crying and freaking out. And they hit the gas. This is incredibly detailed. This is an incredibly detailed example of something that I don't actually have the reference point to. I don't have a citation for this. So I can't argue with you on any of the story that you're giving me because I have no way of knowing this incident. But I do think that your speculation is correct in the sense that I think that, no, that would be horrible. That would be horrible to have people saying, okay, this means

more to me than you're getting your sick kid to the hospital. I think absolutely. I think that, no, I don't think that, no. I don't think that anybody's life is worth more than another person's life. Well, it's also there's something going on where there's a lot of misdirected rage and anger. People are very angry. My friend was at one of these things where he was trying to get his car through, and they were all blocked and stopped, and people had crossed hands, locked hands, and blocked the highway. And some guy came up to his window and is screaming, Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter. Screaming at his window. He's like, yeah he's like yeah i agree man okay i'm agreed but i'm stuck in traffic why are you yelling at me i'm not doing anything i think we're very angry right now he's like this white guy yelling at him another white guy and he's screaming black lives matter adam it's like okay this is so misdirected if my friend is a democrat he votes liberal he's so so, like down the board with pretty much everything. And someone's screaming at him. It's screaming at him like he has done something wrong because this person is misguided and misdirected rage. And they're a part of this whole mob mentality. Everyone's together. They're all chanting and yelling and everyone's getting excited. And they think that they're doing the right thing. And these kids today, a lot of them that are involved in these protests, they're so enamored by this idea that they're doing the right thing and they're enacting change. They don't realize that they're also polarizing the opposition. And this is one of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected in the first place, because so many people are so tired of people shoving in their face their righteous indignation. Shoving in their face is locking hands and blocking the highway. And you have to listen to us.

That is energy. And it goes like this. And then when it goes like that, people go like that. It's in and out. There's a cycle. And can you understand where the rage is built up of people felt like they've been ignored and they've been pushed back so hard that they actually start exploding like that and they get into these hives because they have no other group to belong to?

There's definitely a way that you could see that. There's definitely a way that makes sense. I guess what is the appropriate way to do things then? What is the way to do things? To continue to write, to continue to talk, to continue to express yourself in a way that's going to make other people consider what you're saying and maybe change people's minds and thoughts. And it's not an instantaneous thing.

No, that's the problem. It's not like you put up a sign and everything's fixed. No, it's going to take time. We are a society that we want to- Right, but I think that's part of the rage of people screaming is they want it to change now. And by going up to my friend's window and yelling Black Lives Matter, this fuckhead thinks he's going to change it.

But he doesn't even really think that. He thinks he's got the right to do it. You got to fucking listen to me, man. There's this thing going on where people get these mob mindsets where they think they're allowed to hit a girl because she's got a red hat on that says make Bitcoin great again. Have you seen that video? That poor girl got maced in the face. Yeah, it was horrible. It was a joke hat.

They maced her in the fucking face. I get that. I get what you're saying. And I am on board with the sentiment of what you're saying. I really do understand it. But I also think there's such a finger pointing going on. And I'm guilty of it on my Twitter because I go after these fuckheads all the time. They call me, you feminazi.

And I say, no, fuck Donald Trump. Seriously, that person is not qualified to be president. Well, Hillary's bad, too. I didn't say anything about Hillary. I said. Seriously, that person is not qualified to be president. Well, Hillary's bad, too. It's like, that's not, I didn't say anything about Hillary. I said, this person in office is not qualified. He should step down. But I don't think he really wanted to be president. No, I don't think he wanted to be president at all.

I think the whole thing just got way out of hand. Yeah, no, I think he's terrified. He is a scared, terrified little man up there. Maybe he's not terrified. Maybe he's crazy. But I don't think he wanted to do this. No. I think this just sort of happened.

Yeah. I think he didn't think it through. And I think that's when we're talking about not thinking it through. I think the guy screaming at your friend in the window, he's not thinking it through. He's caught on to something. He's caught up in a wave of something. Well, he thinks he can do it. There's a million other people behind him.

Everyone's screaming. He's looking at my friend. My friend's vulnerable. My friend's below him because he's seated. And he's just screaming, Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. He's like, my friend. My friend's vulnerable. My friend's below him because he's seated. And he's just screaming, Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. It's like, okay. Yeah.

But it's that bullshit. But it's also that bullshit. Twitter generation protesting. You know, but it's also we have learned it's so hard to just generalize and say everything is because of this and everything is because of that, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And so everything has to come from an individual place. And at the same time, we're all trying to belong to communities. We're all trying to belong to something we believe in.

Right. And we're latching onto that. And then I think that the sins that happen, the sins, whatever, that happen along the way, the missteps that happen along the way, we tend to forgive them instead of pointing out, no, you shouldn't do this. You shouldn't affect somebody who's driving their child to work or something like that. That's not what should happen. But we do tend to forgive the people who are in the same team as us, don't we? Of course. And that's where the make America great fuckers. Sorry. Well, they do all that. They can't see their team lose and they'll defend him now to

the death. They'll defend his decisions. He does something wrong. Well, you don't understand how it works, Julie. No, actually, I do understand how it works. This person is not supposed to be in power. This person's not supposed to represent America. And he is, and he's not who I want the world to see America as. I think we're a great country. And we fuck up a lot. There's also a problem when having a popularity contest

to decide who gets to run things. Imagine if they had a popularity contest to get to see who's the dean of Harvard. Yeah. Like, what's the curricular going to be this year? curriculum's going to be jesus because i fucking won yeah no well i mean that's what's going to be happening right now we're going to do away with you know the public's all the vouchers and the shit that's happening there's a lot of weird shit going on that jeff sessions guy scares the shit out of me oh my god he wants to bring back just say no yeah must bring back the 1980s just say no. He just said the marijuana has the same negative effects as heroin.

Yeah, it's slightly less bad than heroin. What the hell, dude? It's a child. It's an old child. Yeah, it's not good. No, it's not good. Because I get worked up thinking about it. I think about these people in power and I get worked up.

What's good about it is you get worked out and people get worked up, rather, and they start talking about it and they also realize that, hey, really does matter if you vote it really does matter if you're politically active right it really does matter if you talk about these things you care but the team mentality that we have the us versus them it just gets so weird it gets so fucking crazy people get so out of control with it and they like you said they the people that make america great again people they don't want to hear shit about the left. They don't want to hear shit about Bernie. They want to say Barack Obama's a Muslim and from fucking Kenya. And I'm guilty of not wanting to know good things about Donald Trump.

I don't want to know them. I don't care. I don't I don't care because I see so much. You know, it's just like there's so much that's working against human achievement with him being in power and the people he's appointing in power. There is, but I think it gives people a goal. I think it gives people like I think without opposition, it's very difficult to get motivated. And I think there's a significant amount of opposition now. And people are I think they're organizing people on the left are organizing in a way that they never have before. And hopefully, hopefully, people will understand. There'll be someone along the line that understands that the polarization effect

that happens between choosing these hardline teams, left and right, and not recognizing the possibility that there's so many people in the middle that just pick a side. They just decide to go left or decide to go right. And they could be on either side. But both of them are unreasonable. Both of them are unrealistic. And yeah, Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. She was a terrible opposition candidate.

Hopefully next time there'll be someone that's really good and will understand what is the problem with having a megalomaniacal egomaniac who's a fucking a business vulture run the country. Which happened. I mean, that was the choice. This one or this one. I will say, in my opinion, she was more qualified. She served as Secretary of the State. Now, I didn't like that she was a professional politician because I think when you're a professional politician, then you're dedicated to just winning and not, you know. But I don't know. She was a liar.

I don't know her. There's real problems. Yeah. Yeah, there's real problems. But who the fuck wants to be president? That's the other problem. Well, the thing is, like, who, the people who want to be president don't understand it's the highest public service office that you can possibly do. But you're also going to get shit on.

Yeah, no. Like, the whole world's going to dump on your head. Yes, and you have to absolutely serve the country. Like, that's what I don't get. I don't understand how anybody would want to be president and want to give that much of themselves up. But I also can see how people would want to aspire to serve the country, not lead the country, serve the country. And that's where I just, I lose my shit.

Like, honestly, so many of my friends, I have, I've tried to express this to them that I can't have conversations with them on Twitter anymore. I have to talk to them via text. Like, I can't. Because, yeah, because people jump into my conversation. I get it. Oh, I see. I see. You know, and it's just, I got so many rape threats during this fucking election because

I was, oh my God, it was insane. It was just to the point where it's just like, okay, I can't speak with this person who's arguing with me, even though they're my friend and I'm not unfriending them, not, not being their friend. I'm just like, you have to talk to me one-on-one because so many people were just coming at me. And that's like having a conversation in a mall and people just walk by and start yelling at you.

I'll fucking rape you. Okay. Good luck. I don't know. What do you do with that? I'm there. I'm, I'm okay with understanding like that kind of,

I guess that kind of, it's not an assault. It's, it's a word indicating. And so I meant, but I've been not a public figure necessarily but i've had people talk shit about me to my face talk shit about me here and there because of my previous group because you know in mma you get a certain amount of people just telling you how

terrible you are but to a certain extent you don't also you want to be desensitized to somebody to threatening to rape you you don't want to be desensitized you never want that to be it's a terrible thing yeah it's a horrible thing it's also so fucking easy to say something and just type it out and try to get, I'm going to get Julie's fucking goat. Yeah, right. I'm going to get her to think. And yeah. I'm going to get her pissed.

And when I'm looking for a fight, I jump right on it because I want to fight him, you know? Why do you want to do that though? I miss combat. Really, I miss arguing with people. I do. Like arguing with my fists or arguing, I miss combat. I do miss that. Have people. I do. Like arguing with my fists or arguing I miss combat. I do miss that. Have you thought about maybe entering grappling competitions or something?

Yeah. You know, with that, actually, Iowa has a really good Brazilian jiu-jitsu club. And I went there once and I had a great time rolling. And then I just, I don't know what it is about the way my mentality works, but I feel like it would distract me away from my writing. And I know it wouldn't. I know it would probably be balancing me more, but I get so intense about the things that I'm doing. Like I had a list of questions for you today, just because I wanted to find out what you think about certain things. Like I just get so, uh, I narrow minded maybe as a thing for

it, but I just get so obsessed about getting answers to certain things or asking questions about things. And I'm afraid I do that with grappling and jujitsu and I would get too far into that and not address the new direction that my life needs to take. You sound a lot like me. Well, I'm a terrible stand-up comedian, so I'm nothing like you. You're good. But I mean, you're a need to get completely absorbed in things. Yeah, it's... And then you're worried about being absorbed in other things.

completely absorbed in things, you know, and then you're worried about being absorbed in other things. Yeah, I do. And it's like, it's a weird, it's, I got sort of diagnosed when I went through my depression spell. Like I'd been, I'd had depression before, but you know, post fight depression was pretty rough. And, um, you know, I was on this, I was on that and my body was like getting all weird. And, um, they said that I have real attention deficit disorder problems. And I'm still going through the testing for that. But they did give me Adderall, which is amazing. Amazing. Also dangerous.

Very dangerous. I know. But it calmed me down so much. I was so calm. And I was like, oh. Adderall calmed you down. Yes. Yeah, that's what they say about the people that have real ADHD. They give you Adderall, it calms you down.

It's just like, oh, okay. This makes a lot more sense i'm not looking at 10 000 things at once right like i'm always looking at 10 000 things at once you know and actually it's something i did talk to my therapist about i was just like i what if i'm gonna lose creativity this way right like i'm not no you on still on the antidepressants no no i went off of them when i started school um they mess with your sex life a little bit. I don't have an active one anymore, so it doesn't matter. But, you know, it was like, you can't,

for me, it was like, it was really hard for me to reach orgasm and stuff when I was on them. I know, we're talking everything. I try not to blush. I know, I shit my pants, I couldn't orgasm for a year. For a year? Yeah, about, I think. Whoa. It was rough, it was rough, but I was also so sad. Like, you know? Yeah, about. I think it was rough. It was rough.

But I was also so sad. Fuck. You know, like, I don't know. God damn, Julie. But now that I'm off of them, I'm also mid-30s. So sex is awesome, like, as a woman in your mid- Really? I turned 36 on Saturday, and I'm just like, I've never been in a happier, like, which is weird because you think, okay, well, my fertility is dwindling dwindling i may not have kids i may have kids who knows what's gonna happen but

sex as a woman in your mid-30s is awesome now i know so much better yeah now you know i wasn't sure yeah i mean i'm sure that's something that would keep you up at nights what is a woman i wonder i can't believe i'm talking about this but but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's real life and real bodies and how people go through things. And antidepressants really messed me up. I've heard that before from men as well. Yeah, it was tough, but it was needed. I didn't want to hurt myself anymore.

And I think that I was going down a path where I was going to be hurting myself. With your decisions, with the mindset. Yeah. And just physically, like I have a history of eating disorders and doing things. And it's like, I could see myself slipping into that path again. And so it was like leaving fighting and then discovering that I actually really want to explore this new area of fighting that is writing or this new area of creativity that is writing that you can bring fighting into. And I needed all of these kind of things to be laid out. And I thought I probably would have interrupted myself if I hadn't gone on antidepressants. And I hadn't kind of pulled back a little bit from feeling everything so intensely. And were you worried that you were

worried that the Adderall was going to invade your creative thoughts and somehow mess them up? I'm worried about that now. I'm still being tested put me on it but they said we have to go through all this testing for it so I'm still being tested for if I have attention deficit disorder whatever it is um that makes me think in a peculiar way or not be able to get tasks finished and so you know we're I'm still being tested for it but you know taking it now I am able to um I am able to calm down. How often do you take it? Once a day, but it only lasts four hours. So my doctor gave me enough for two a day. I've only taken one today, and it was hours.

I've been drinking a shitload of coffee, but I took one, like, earlier this morning. What does it do? Like, what's the effect? So if, say, I wake up in my room, and I look look and it's messy in my room. What I tend to do or my tendency to do, especially post-fighting whenever I enter this weird mind space, is panic about this is messy here. This being messy here means I won't be able to complete this task. This will happen here. This will happen here.

And then I'm never going to be able to. And then I just get paralyzed. And I panic. And I'm fearful that I can't actually just get out of bed to put a shirt on or to pick something up because everything all of a sudden clouds in at once. And it would lead me to hyper-focus on really strange things. And I think that actually helped with fighting. If that's what I have, I'm still in the diagnosis like process of process of this, but, you know, so far, this is the medicine that's worked the best for me. But when I was fighting, one thing that I did do poorly was I would go from A to C instead of go to A to B to C.

I would see what would happen after I won the fight in my mind when I first started training camp, which a lot of fighters do, and I think that helps. But sometimes you miss B where the actual fight happens. And in my mind, sometimes I would gloss over that, and I think that helps but sometimes you miss B where the actual fight happens and in my mind sometimes I would gloss over that and I would get caught up in things and I would wait for this to happen and wait for that time or be paralyzed and not be able to make the next step right now I feel like I am able to when I take a pill I'm able to put my feet on the ground out of bed look up and say okay my room needs to be cleaned but first I need to do this. And I'm able to make, I'm able to go A to B and then do C. Instead of just jumping over and then looking at C and then thinking all the things after me just come crashing at

me and I freak out. Now, you said earlier that post-career you started thinking about brain trauma. Yeah. You started thinking about, do you, what, like what thoughts specifically? I wondered about, well, the depression, right? Right. You know, and I wonder about how many shots that I've taken. I mean, I had a good chin.

I was rocked a lot in the gym. I sparred a lot. I mean, I, you know, like I said, like back in the old days, I would fight whatever opportunity came my way. I never took, didn't have CT scans until I got into Strikeforce, which was late in my career. So, or CT or MRI, I forgot which one does what. So I don't know how much of the ditheriness that I have is like, yeah, just like, here, here, here, you know, that's, you know, like not, like not finding my sunglasses because they're on the top of my head and wandering around looking for them. And for a while there,

I was really scared. Maybe this is a post-fight, you know, brain trauma. And the depression set in pretty hard post-fight. So I was wondering, well, what, you know, and seeing doctors and stuff like that, like, you know, they were like, you know, maybe you should get an MRI. Maybe you should get your brain checked. But let's also address the depression right now. And once the depression was addressed, and I was able to see that there's something else going on here that may not be due to getting hit in the head. It may actually be due to me having a chemical thing that makes me just all over the place because I'm in the best school in the world for writing right now. I didn't get in there like without, how do I explain it? The focus is different. I think I just needed to channel it. And I think that I got very scared that I had brain damage, that I was going to never be able to do anything that I wasn't going to be able to.

And the truth was, I think that my body chemistry had changed somewhat and my learning disassociation, my learning, whatever it is that that made me good at fighting, had to translate into a different world. And so I had to kind of take steps to do that and get into some pretty intense therapy and do things like that in order to understand that, no, my brain is just wired differently. So I don't know if it's the creative brain or the obsessive brain or whatever. Yeah, it's...

I mean, I sound like I'm talking bro science here because I really don't have a diagnosis sheet to show you from an actual doctor. Well, not only that, the reality of depression is that a doctor can't really say like, oh, hey, look, you've got herpes. There it is. Right, right. You know what I mean?

It's not something like that. Depression is some very, very difficult thing to define. And you only know whether or not you have it yourself. They can't like scan you and go, oh, Julie, you're depressed. Yeah, you can answer a whole bunch of questions that they give you. But you can also lie if you know what they're looking for, which is what I did in many depression tests. I would just lie because I didn't want people to think I had depression. And it was just like, okay, but I am actually feeling this on this survey.

I should answer this correctly. Yeah. And I will say that something that I did, you know, when I look back at my lifetime of choices and the things that I did, I self-medicated with experiences, like trying to have this experience, this experience, this experience, have all this, all this, do this, do this, you know, all this. And I self-medicated. I had very severe bulimia. And that would calm me down. It would calm me down. While you were fighting? No, early days of fighting. It's actually one of the things I really, and I don't talk about it, but I really credit Greg Jackson for this and putting me on a path. Because I confessed to him, okay, this is a problem that I have. When I first say this is something that I've dealt with a little bit with some

treatments. But you know, I puke my my food up. And he he didn't let me anymore. I don't know how he didn't let me anymore. But he just he put a lot of care and pressure on me to be a more mentally healthy person by directing that energy, that panicked energy, when I would get all worked up and just have to go puke, because I didn't know what else to do with myself. And he helped me direct that energy into the sport. And he gave me tasks to do. And I ended up working for him. But it was just like, I mean, he's a really fucking good dude.

Like, really good dude. He's a very good guy. Yeah. And just, you know, I honestly credit him for, I think he saved my life to a certain extent because I got pretty bad there for a while. honestly credit him for, I think he saved my life to a certain extent because I got pretty bad there for a while. Like, and when I moved to Jackson's, it was like sort of that understanding that I'm stepping into a new realm where I am a professional athlete. Now I have to conduct myself a certain way. I have to eat food a certain way. I have to address my body a certain way. I have to, you know,

it, it, it, it took a burden off of me that made me panic. And I don't know how to explain that, but it gave me purpose maybe to be somebody that somebody else is invested in to understand. Okay, he's like, you know, you're my first female MMA fighter that I really want to put work into. So don't get fucking pregnant. Don't do this. Don't puke anymore. Don't do, you know, he put some rules in place for me when I came there because he said he wasn't really on board with him. Oh, I shouldn't say that because it'll get him a lot of shit. He wasn't on board with female MMA. And then, you know, he saw my

fight. He liked it. He liked me. And he was just like, OK, I'll give this a shot. And for me, it saved my life because I don't know where I would be without MMA for, you know, and when it comes to, I guess, the bulimia and theabotage that I was doing to myself, competing in the sport and finding purpose was really important. And just the talks I would have with him about, like, you know, philosophy and this kind of thing, because it's hard to find people to talk about some intellectual subjects with sometimes in that sport or in a gym. And so to be able to sit down and break things down and think, okay, I can use my brain this way. This is great. And then when I quit fighting and I moved to Kansas, I didn't have that bubble anymore. I didn't have that, that home or that, that feeling, you know? And so it was just like, I just slid right backwards and I was gaining all this weight and I was, you know, I just became eating poorly. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, you, sugar is so addictive when you

actually get to eat it again like what do you do like it's it feels so good like yeah so yeah I went through a rough time there and then I I found school and I was like oh shit I can do this this is where my energy can be so well that's awesome that you found something I mean I would really think that diet would have also a pretty significant effect on the way your brain works. Oh, we have. Do you monitor that now? Do you take care of yourself now? Yes. Yes.

Because I actually I mean, I still I'll drink sugar, like I'll put sugar in a drink or something like that. But I don't I don't care for it as much. My tastes have kind of changed over time. I like vegetables. I like meat. I you know, vegetables and meat were a huge staple when I was fighting. And now when I find myself just being drawn to that anyway, you know.

But, you know, post-fighting, it's like it's the orgy of sugar and food and things you were never allowed to have. Right. You were deprived. Yeah. And it's like, well, your body wasn't designed to eat this anyway. Yeah. So it's going to affect your brain. Do you just give yourself like a cheat day or a reward day or something like that?

What I don't do is, and this could come from a lifetime of Catholicism. I don't, yeah, I know, right? Yeah, but no, I grew up very Catholic. I'm very not Catholic now. Don't tell my grandma. No, but what I don't do is I don't beat myself up. If I eat junk food, fine. Okay, but the next meal is going to be healthy.

So you're more concerned with overall health, mental, physical, the whole thing. And to be obsessive about something is actually probably worse than just having a little sugar. Yes. And I guess to be, yeah, yeah, because then it's self-flagellation, right? Then you're just like, ah, fuck, everything's terrible. I'm just going to eat this now. I'm just a terrible person. Yeah, exactly.

It just goes down that spiral and it's kind of dumb. And I realized that I need something to be obsessive about. And that has actually come through writing, you know, and that sort of thing. And working towards like I'd love to write the great book. Just the book. Well, then do it. I'm working on it. It seems like this style of thinking that you have would lend itself towards something like that.

This obsessive style of thinking. Like it could really be an amazing tool for you i would hope so i would hope and i just i guess translating mma to to people not just in is that what you want to write about i think so i think so it's a when i first came came into i was just like no no i'm done with mma i'm not gonna do you know and then i'm just like oh but these are my people like even what about you just your life experiences itself i mean coming from a point of view of someone like you who's so smart and articulate, I would imagine that your memoirs or what you would be able to describe about your days competing would be really fascinating and compelling. Yeah, I've definitely worked on that. Like I've written some things to that extent.

The stuff that they picked up for Sports Illustrated was really nice. Like that was nice. That was a help. I like things to be on a little bit, I guess a little bit, not woo-woo like literary level, but just something that's, I'd like a little bit more symbolism, a little bit more, I don't know. When I wrote the piece about, it's the piece that got me into Iowa. It was the piece about cutting weight when I decided to retire. And when I cut weight and I was an Australian, I saw this painting and it just changed everything. And I was just like, wow. It was a piece about cutting weight when I decided to retire. And when I cut weight and I was in Australia

and I saw this painting and it just changed everything and I was just like, wow. What was it? It's a Picasso painting of this woman with a hat on her head. A Dutch hat.

It's, oh God. Mademoiselle, I cannot remember the name of it. I am drawing a blank right here. Eggs. Think about eggs. Think about eggs, how eggs are prepared. Poached?

Scrambled? Keep going. Fried? Keep going. Hollandaise. Mademoiselle Hollandaise? Hollandaise, yes. Something to that effect, I believe.

I have the print in my room, but now I don't look at the titles of things. I just look at the images more than anything. But I saw this painting, and I was in a museum in Australia, and I was cutting weight for my fight. I had all my sweats on, but I was in an art museum, and I saw it, and I just felt like it was talking to me all of a sudden. And I was just like... Were you delirious because you were losing weight? See, no, but symbolically, I know what you mean. Like, the symbolism there.

Like, I was... Maybe. I know what you mean. Like the symbolism there, like I, I was, maybe I was talking to myself. Yeah, that's it. That's the painting. Yeah. And I just looked at that.

And I, LaBelle Hollandaise. LaBelle Hollandaise. That's it. Not Memo. I suck at names. Um, that's another, I have a very bad memory.

Um, but I, you know, I looked at that and I just, I connected with this painting in this weird weird how so way i just saw it and i couldn't stop talking to it in my head like like there's a person i'm talking to now okay and and it just and i wrote about this it was just like it was just like oh yeah you know what i'm done and i knew that in that museum just standing there

looking at this painting before my fight well you sure you weren't just looking for a sign to latch on your thoughts to? Right. Of course I was. And it was just this beautiful image of this woman who's, you know, it doesn't look like a fighter, doesn't look like anything to do with combat. It's just a naked woman wearing a hat. But all of a sudden it just, to me, that was what I was looking for. I was looking for that sort of sign. And that's where it became cohesive. Like that's that moment. And I just knew I was done. Hmm.

That's fascinating. I think I'd been looking for excuses for a long time before that. And I think I wanted to retire before I fought Jermaine Durandamy. You know? Like, I was just so tired, and I was just so, my mind just wasn't going that direction that other people's minds were. Do you see that in other fighters? You see that moment where you know that they're just sort of phoning it in? Yeah.

And they can't figure out how to get off. Yeah. And for me, it was like I would overtrain. Like before the Jermaine fight, I was so overtrained. I was so tired. And it just like froze, you know, and stuff like that. Also, she hit like a fucking Mack truck. Yeah.

She put me out on my feet in the third round of that fight. Like she hit me with two right hands. Second right hand, I didn't know what was going on. Like I was out. What did you think about her fight with Holly? So I'm always thinking about the late hits. I think it was terrible. Horrible.

Right. It was terrible. I think that should have been called and that should have been point deducted. And I don't know that as an insult to Jermaine or anything like that, that's combat minded or whatever, but that's cheating. Yeah. It's a hundred percent cheating.

And she rocked her too. Yeah. She rocked Holly with one of those shots.. Yeah, it's 100% cheating. And she rocked her, too. Yeah. She rocked Holly with one of those shots. And I think it's, yeah, I think it's something that she saw that she could do, and she did I was very disappointed when they didn't, when they denied her protest. Yeah, me too. Of protest, that was a very legitimate one. 100%.

And that's not something that Holly's ever done before. No, she's not. No. And it's not like she doesn't accept defeat. I mean, she doesn't accept defeat, as I will keep moving forward, but she doesn't find excuses. I've known that woman for almost a decade. She doesn't look for excuses. She looks for ways to improve.

And, yeah, so that, you know, her putting a protest in is very legitimate. Very legitimate. And Holly Holm's another one. She's all heart. I mean, she came back from a deficit in that fight landed that that um question mark kick over the shoulder and climbed her that was beautiful she's that was one of the best question mark kicks i've ever seen landed inside the octagon against a really tricky muay thai opponent who was getting the better of her early on she's a holly is i feel like the

world hasn't even seen the best holly hol yet. I know that sounds weird, but... Well, she's 36, right? Yeah, 35. I think that there's more to her, though, potential-wise, that we haven't even seen yet. But we'll see. I don't know what her plan is. I don't talk to her that much anymore.

Isn't that kind of what we were talking about with the VTOR thing, though? It's almost like your experience and your ability and your knowledge gets overwhelmed by Father Time. It's like Father Time, and your ability and your knowledge gets overwhelmed by father time. It's like father time and there's a cross in the road. And you have to figure out how much experience do you have, how much knowledge, and whether or not your body can actually act on those things anymore. And there comes a point where they're just... Yeah, and I don't know... I'd say that's pretty early to say about her in her MMA career,

but she has had all that boxing and kickboxing experience before this. So maybe, you know. She's had some wars. Yeah, she has. Like, gosh, she's so inspirational. That fight that she lost, that one boxing match where she got KO'd was so hard to watch. It was brutal. And the ref not.

Horrible. They should have stopped that fight way earlier. Oh, my God. I know. And her mentality coming out of that fight. I had to be her sparring partner after that fight if that tells you how much brain damage I might have now. But her mentality after that fight, she refused to interact with people or have people corner her that would doubt that she could win that fight in the future. Refused.

She's such a champion mind that, if people thought she would that she would take corrections she would take you know this i'm gonna switch this this up i've got to do this differently but if you believe that she shouldn't have the rematch she wouldn't work with you wow yeah because she was like no i can't have somebody not believing in me i mean it was it was incredible it was very inspirational she was right yeah she came back and won the rematch, which is crazy. Oh my gosh. No, she's a warrior. No doubt about that.

Yeah. So we only have a couple more minutes. I've been talking so much. You said you had a bunch of questions. You still want to throw some at me? Cause I know you've got them written down. You know, it was the,

I think when we went back to the, and these are, you know, it's a shorthand, but it was, you know, the, who were you when you started and who are you now? And I guess what goes with that. And I asked these questions because I've been asking them of a lot of people in this sport or in this industry or people who are high level in what they're doing.

What would you have left behind? What do you regret? What would you have left behind in becoming who you are now? What could you have changed? And I don't, it's a hard question to ask because nobody wants to look back and, oh, I regret this. Because we learn from our regrets, right? But if there's something you could have changed, you could have done differently, would you have? I think all of my errors have made me a better person.

So I don't think they're bad. You know, I think, I mean, that's a real cliche thing. You don't make mistakes. Or if you do make mistakes, you learn. If you don't make mistakes, you grow and you improve. I mean, like, a real cliche thing. You don't make mistakes. Or if you do make mistakes, you learn. If you don't make mistakes, you grow and you improve. I mean, like, it's all good. It's not what happens. It's how you react to what happens.

And what one mistake do you think, like, really defined you to make you better? Oh, geez. Not one. It's just a bunch of them. I mean, God, there's a million of them. There's nowhere to even start. You know what I mean? You just constantly make mistakes.

You make mistakes with your friends. You make mistakes with people you're involved with romantically. You make mistakes career-wise. You make mistakes with comedy and art. You're constantly, I mean, it's a constant process of mistakes, especially when you're writing new stuff. With jiu-jitsu, there's constant mistakes. I think testing yourself and constantly seeking improvement and constantly trying to expand upon your creative work and expand upon, you know, what you're doing as a martial artist or what you're doing as an athlete or, you know, improving upon your conditioning drills and trying to advance in yoga, get better at that.

And I just, I'm always doing something that I'm failing in. I mean, I think that's a big part of it. I like doing new things and sucking at them. I think that's good too. So in that vein, I guess, of reasoning, what do you carry into this? I mean, I don't know the exact numbers of your podcast, but it's huge, right? I mean, you get a huge amount of downloads. You're number one or in the top, at least the top five all the time for, you know, whatever.

But so what do you carry into this space with people that you don't want to leave behind? Like, what is it that you think you bring to this? That I don't want to leave behind? Yeah. Like that you've carried since you were young, since you first started in the entertainment industry or in MMA or in jiu-jitsu? What part of Joe do you bring into this space and that you continue to bring? I definitely don't think about that.

But if there was anything, it would be genuine curiosity. I'm genuinely curious about things. And I'm trying to make this as entertaining as possible. So I do my best to try to make the conversation flow. And I don't always succeed. I fail all the time. And that failure makes me try better. I definitely think I'm better at podcasting now than I was six months ago

and better six months ago than I was a year ago. And then I hope I'll be better a year from now than I am today. And that's just. The beckon. Fail more, fail better. Fail all the time. But there's also, this isn't in a weird way. It's an audio art form.

And it doesn't seem like it is, but the art of conversation is, there's an art, there's an interaction to it, and you're very good at it, which is one of the reasons why you apologize when you accidentally talk over each other. But that's a part of human interaction. We talk over each other. We accidentally do, or sometimes you have a point that you feel like you have to get in now or you forget it. I mean, and it's a matter of like how to do it the right way. And one of the things that I've found from doing podcasts

is how bad people are at that. It's really frustrating to talk to really self-centered people that just talk over everyone and don't listen to what anybody has to say and aren't genuinely listening. They're just waiting for their train to talk. I mean, that, that is really frustrating. And it's, you realize the art of conversation is something that's cultivated. It's something that you, you have to work on. And a lot of people just don't, they're not good at it. Cause you have to, you have to be aware that you're weaving something into a bigger picture as opposed to, yeah. As opposed to just saying what you're saying and then walking out. Yeah. I think listening is huge. I

think you're a very good listener. And I think that that's what I see from the outside, that you're able to do well. And I'd love to emulate you as a commentator in that sense and you as creating this space. I'd love to model a certain amount of myself after that because I think it's wonderful. But so, I mean, any huge regrets?

I mean, you don't have to share them, but does anything keep you up at night? No. No. I mean, there's many things in my life that if they were presented in front of me right now, learning that I've done them in the past and fucked up, I would do it differently. But that's part of being who you are today. I think people, that word regret is a very dangerous word

because people far too often define themselves by their past failures instead of saying, well, that's not you. Like you're not that person. You're you right now. And that's what I really truly believe. I believe that you are all of your experiences in life and all of the data that you've acquired and all the revelations and understandings that you've gathered up because of those positive and negative experiences. And that creates who you are at this moment. And the most interesting people to me are the people that have been tested, that have gone through trials and tribulations. And it's one of the reasons why fighters are so interesting, because the emotional rollercoaster of a fight camp and then fighting and competing and not just MMA, but people that do jujitsu and

boxers and just people that have done something that's very difficult to do. You've tested yourself in a way that very few people have. And so you understand yourself in a much deeper way. You understand where that breaking point is. You understand what happens when you break. You understand who the demons are in your mind that tell you to break. And some people never meet those demons. And they're there.

They're waiting. They're waiting for the call. They're waiting for that fucking button to be pushed so they can pop up into your brain and wreck havoc. Yeah. And so people just want to fight those demons so badly. They make them up. Sure. They make their own demons up. They create problems. They create stress. And you know, sometimes they invoke those demons. They, they ask those demons to come in and distract them from all the real issues that they have in their life and all the things that they actually do need to deal with. All the real work that the pain of the mundane, the pain of the boring discipline work is sometimes so great that people, I mean, that's why some fighters wind up fucking off and

getting drunk and never coming to work out and wind up being in poor shape when the fight comes off it's not because they didn't know the fight was coming it's not because they're a coward it's because they're letting their demons trip them up i think boredom and that not listening aspect i think that it's also connected um no you yeah and that leads people down paths where they can't get back from it. Sure. And that's unfortunate. That's, yeah, I think when we lament the loss of somebody's present themselves in life is one of the most interesting and fascinating things about studying human beings. And to me, it's like the exact opposite of the mob mentality when you're swept away in this group think and you're really not responsible for yourself.

And you're thinking in this very almost selfish way of giving into this thing it's too easy it's too easy there's so many people around ah just go crazy it's like the opposite of like the lone one of the reasons why i never really was into team sports i was like i understand that it's a challenge i understand that it's difficult but there's an intensity of the one-on-one competition that cannot be matched in any other forum. Whether it's even it's one-on-one playing tennis, it's so much more intense than a group game of volleyball or basketball or whatever. I would say to that, though, given because you are who you are and you've built so many quote-unquote followers, you've built so many people who listen to your opinion, you are in a sense on a team and you are a leader because so many people download your podcast. So many people want to enter this space that you create. So do you feel a responsibility to them to tell them

to think for themselves? I hope people just figure that out on their own because there's no way anybody could think for you. Right. Right. But I do allow people to think for me in a certain way. Like when I listen to someone, like if I listen to a book on tape or I listen to a lecture, what I'm listening to is I'm allowing this person to direct my thoughts with their words. They're painting pictures, they're explaining facts, they're going over their own personal experiences. And you are in many ways allowing that person to think for you. But then when that's over, you think for yourself and you take into account what that person has said and it can enhance your perceptions. Because if someone's being honest with you, which I think is one of the most important

parts of being, of expressing yourself, I would like to know what your real motivations are. I want to know what your real thoughts are. I don't want you to pretend. I don't want you to be a politician. I don't want you to just give me some bullshit version of who you are because you think I'm going to like you more from that. And I think people can tell when someone's doing that. Right.

And I think when someone's not doing that, when someone's being genuine, people cling to it and they go, look, maybe he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. But maybe he's being honest about it. And I'll find out together. We'll figure it out together because at least this dude's telling me the truth or she's telling me the truth or, you know, this group is an honest group. That's what I think we belong for in this life because this life is so filled with dramatic interpretations of reality. And so there's so much just bullshit that it's hard to find truth. And we seek truth. I think I think truth is sought in combat.

I think there's a lot of people that seek truth in watching MMA. Like we're talking about that Darren Elkins fight, there's no truer moment in the world. And this guy digging deep. I mean, it's as raw as it gets. His face is covered in blood. You can't even fucking see. There's a truth in that that's inescapable.

You can't dance your way out of it. You can't bullshit your way out of it. Spotlights and glitter and fucking hype music. There's none of it. Spotlights and glitter and fucking hype music. There's none of that. It's down to this inescapable reality. And I think when people are confronted with all the trials and tribulations of life, and there's so much confusion and we seek inspiration in so many different avenues and we seek leadership and we seek mentorship and we seek like this this hope hopefully this light out there that guides us in some sort of a way and one of the only ways that we can really truly trust that light is if we know it's coming from a

person that is committed to the path of honesty right right so what are your tools for discernment in that just don't bullshit myself yeah it's really yeah I know right manipulation is so easy to fall into but it's also so easy to to just resent everybody about them too like i teach rhetoric so like we we consider a text and we're just like okay who's the speaker what is the text what is you know what is the message in the text like what are they trying to say and then what is this huge like mythos surrounding all of this and what's what are they trying to do here and it's it's so interesting to see kids minds change about like oh i don't actually have to believe this because this is what i've been assigned or i do have to think

a certain way or i have to consider the source i think and it gets it's kind of a rabbit hole sometimes yes you know that's where in my mind like the truest religion to me like or whatever if you want to call religion is science. I just think science is that the scientific method is like based on so much philosophy, so much. And it's trying to fail all the time. Like that's what it is, like repeatable results. If you can't get repeatable like results, like blind results on something, then that's what you're always trying to do. And you're always failing.

But, you know, I come from a family of scientists. So, of course, like that's, you know, for me, it's what i love more than anything is to hear them talk about how to find truth and then truth is also different from fact and so when you go down okay is it truth or is it fact or is it a pain like what's going on here it gets really um finding tools for discernment that's really that becomes really tricky and i think that's where hive mind comes from right you know like people not trying to grab those tools not trying to assess their own really, that becomes really tricky. And I think that's where hive mind comes from, right? You know, like people not trying to grab those tools, not trying to assess their own motivations for latching on to thinking that this is right. They just want their team to win. And it's also

absorbing information and sort of formulating your own viewpoint takes time, takes a long time. And who you are today is going to be different than who you are 10 years from now. And that's something that you have to kind of embrace. And, you know, it's hard to think in the moment, but be happy for those uncomfortable moments. Yeah. Because those uncomfortable moments, you learn from them. Yeah, you have to be wrong. You have to seek being wrong as much as possible, right? And you have to see things that maybe change the way you look at things and experience things that change your boundaries, change your perceptions.

It's one of the things I worry the most for, I think, as a country for us that we get so comfortable. Oh, we're soft as fuck. And, you know, and I don't even mean soft as in like. We're puppy shit in a plastic bag. Well, we just the because. I don't know what it is about. Because I don't know what it is about. And it's, again, I do believe what you said about individualism and doing your own thing and striking, you know, forging your own path and stuff like that.

But our inability somehow to commit ourselves to learning. Yeah, but it's not everybody. No, it's not. A lot of people are. You're committed to learning. I'm committed to learning. There's a lot of people listening to this that are committed to learning. Yeah, I hope so. Like, I'm banking on that because I actually believe

in people. Like I believe that people are good. I believe you believe that. I think the group think thing is real and what you're talking about is real. But I also think that when you're judging 350 million people, it's impossible to generalize. Right. When you say, as a country, we're soft. We're getting our shit. Yeah, we're soft. We're right. A lot of us are. If you look overall, if you looked at the pie chart of soft people, like, oh, fuck,

look how soft we are. Through the pie chart of ignorant people, look how ignorant we are. But in that pie chart, in defining people in that sort of a broad generalization, you lose the beauty of individuality. And that's one of the things that's unique about us is that we have the ability in this country to seek out all sorts of different paths, to be who you would choose to be, to follow whatever occupation or whatever path of interest that you choose to follow. And I think that's a beautiful thing. That's an amazing thing.

It is a beautiful thing. I don't think those opportunities are available to everybody in a lot of senses. And that's just through my own experience of becoming a fighter and having to struggle to be a female fighter. You know, that makes me think of I'm actually privileged to have been able to make that decision. And, you know, the female fighters after me, I think, benefit from me making that decision and from other fighters like me making that decision. Sure.

It's moved on. But I do think that when we look at society and we talk about, I don't know, being soft or not being soft, sometimes people just they can't pull themselves up from their bootstraps if they don't know where the fuck their boots are or where they find them. And I do think there's so many there's so much divisiveness. And I think that's what leads to. And I'm, I'm a fucking perpetuator of that. Like when I go off on, you know, this fucking MAGA guys and this and that, you know, I go nuts sometimes I, I fall into that anger and I wish I didn't. But so then don't.

Well, that's, that's what you like. That's what therapy's for. Right. I like a good fight. I do. I like a good fight. I do. Well, I would say to you

as a friend that I think you'd probably be better off expressing that aggressive energy in some sort of another outlet. I believe you're absolutely correct. And avoiding interacting with strangers because another thing about some of those people that you're interacting with are fucking losers and they will lock on to you and they find out that you are a source

of entertainment where they could press your buttons and make you dance and they'll keep doing it and that's what trolling is all about it is um a phenomenal art form this trolling like that that they've taken i mean it's great i mean the best thing i've ever discovered is my mute button not even blocking people but just muting people and also i mean actually the best thing i've discovered is that like i have to take my phone and physically put it away from me and then I can write and I get into that zone and it feels wonderful. That's very important. Putting the phone away and just putting it down, disconnecting.

But you don't want to be, I want to connect with people. I love that. Twitter has done, it's made great friendships for me. Yeah, for sure. But one of the beautiful things about doing podcasts, one of the things it's taught me is that I don't ever have three-hour conversations with people outside of podcasting. Like you and I got deeper and got to know each other better in this conversation than we would if we knew each other passing each other at the ufc for a decade has it been three hours yes holy shit i'm sorry i had no idea no that's what we usually do i had no idea it was that long time flies i figure you

always have other guests and you know no three hours you and I just did three hours. But whenever in life do you get to sit across from someone, just stare them in the eyes, across the table like you and I have done for three hours, and just go deep. Well, and it's a space you've created, right? Like you've built this. You're big on that word space. I am. I don't know what that is. Creating space. It's all this writing shit.

It's so weird. It's like I was reading all this Foucault and this heterotopia stuffopia stuff and i'm just like this is really cool because i see this when we read and i see this i listen to so many audiobooks and so many podcasts and i'm just like i'm finding weird spaces in my brain to be connected to people who don't even know who the fuck i am but i feel close to them yeah in that sense yeah that's exactly what it is in that sense yeah yeah yeah i i i should probably stop talking but i forgot i totally forgot to plug Invicta I was just like because I was gonna just I was gonna email all these questions to you anyway so I could talk to you but I love actually talking to you in person because I feel like I

haven't had the opportunity to actually know you and um you know except for when I listen to you like that's a different yeah yeah it's weird but life's weird life is weird it's weird as fuck it's so fucking weird it is it is what is this all about i think it's good for people to hear that it's weird for other people too you know it's good for me to hear that it's weird for you and it's good for other people to hear that it's weird for me and it's fucking weird yeah you know and you but you could be nice yeah you could be nice through this. You could be nice through this weirdness. You could be nice and you can actually, you can connect to people. And like, if it is like the Appalachian Trail and we're just putting one foot in front of

the other, at least it's a damn good view. I don't think the people that finished that trail think that. I don't think they do. I think the people who fail. They decide it's just one foot in front of the other. I want to stay at the fucking Red Roof Inn tonight. Yeah, exactly. Julie, thank you very much.

Thank you, Joe. Really appreciate you coming on here. It was fun. Thank you for having me, thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. Really appreciate you coming on here. It was fun. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. All right, folks. We'll be back next week. See ya.

Mwah.