The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #140 with Gillian Robertson

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Joe sits down with Gillian Robertson, a mixed martial artist currently competing in the Strawweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. www.ufc.com/athlete/gillian-robertson

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. How long do you have to stop smoking weed before you'll test positive? Usually about five days. Five days before a fight? If you're smoking straight flour. But if you're smoking like oil, dabs, anything like that, then you need a little bit more time. You got down to a science? I figured it out when I tested positive one fight because I was smoking oil and I stopped five days out.

Oh, smoking oil. Those wacky kids and their dabs and oil. You guys go too far. You guys go too far. You guys go too far. There's way too many ways now, I feel like. You go to dark places. You do dabs. You go to dark places.

Yeah, especially with dabs. That's the next level extreme. Yeah, I'm not interested in that. You just get too far gone. You don't even know how to move your hands right. There's this stuff that i'm a medical patient in florida and there's stuff you can get from the dispensary it's like little nose drops and that shit like makes you like literally i feel like i can't form sentences is this a spray

yeah it's just like a nasal spray there's so many wacky people in austin spraying ketamine up their nose it is a real issue. We had a girl go into a K-hole at our comedy club the other night. Yeah, and her boyfriend's like, she just did a lot of ketamine. And we're like, Jesus fucking Christ. Do that at home, you nuts. They're doing ketamine and going to see comedy. From the moment I got here, it's been offered to me frequently.

What is going on? How's ketamine? Ketamine's a fucking tranquilizer, right? It's a powerful psychedelic too, right? It's also available in clinics for people to do PTSD work. I feel like there's a lot of people that are doing it every day though. Have you done it? No, no.

I've never messed with anything like that. I took a little of Duncan's. Duncan had one. I think he made it in his bathtub. What did it feel like? Do you remember? Weird. But it was very little. Just take one pump. So I took a little of Duncan's. Duncan had one. I think he made it in his bathtub. What did it feel like? Do you remember? Weird. But it was very little.

He goes, just take one pump. So I took like one pump. And I was like, this is odd. But I know the source and I know where he's getting it. And it's all medical grade and legit. But it's like, what is that? Yeah, I don't know. I like a lot of natural things better.

THC nasal mist. You're right. Well, yeah, I guess marijuana is the ultimate natural thing. I was just saying that I hurt my back a little bit. It tweaked a muscle, and it locked up, and I put on this CBD MD Recover Cream. I mean, that stuff is insanely good. It's incredible how much better I felt. No, that's crazy.

It's amazing that CBD has that kind of power. Yeah, I've never used a topical cream like that. But I've used like pills and things like that with CBD. And I feel like it definitely does make a difference. Like there's, I don't know, there's a huge difference. Huge difference. My friend Dave Foley had real bad arthritis in his hands. And he started taking CBD and all of a sudden his hands started working fine.

Like it just took a while. It took, it just, your body is filled with inflammation. And CBD is just an awesome way to get rid of inflammation. Especially as a fighter. Oh, yeah. It's like everything's inflamed constantly. Who needs CBD more than fighters, right? And who needs marijuana more than fighters?

Just to fucking chill the fuck out? Like the stress that you go through on a regular basis is so bonkers. If you really think about it, you're around, you know, all these other human beings that are going about their day, driving their cars, going to work. You're preparing to throw bones at girls. You're preparing to strangle people. You put people to sleep for a living you know that is a wild thing to do sister oh yeah it's like pre-fight when i'm sitting there and i'm feeling all my nerves my boyfriend he's told me he's like you need to be thankful for

this because he's like most people don't get to experience shit like this in their life most people don't get to like experience these kinds of feelings like these extreme feelings because they just have their regular jobs it's like what i'm doing is something crazy it's so crazy it's so crazy and when you do it in a place like when you was it in london with molly mccann was that london it was actually liverpool liverpool yeah that was crazy that was crazy when you got her back and put her to sleep i was like oh shit oh yeah that was pretty much it was my first fight out of the tough house you know so uh my UFC debut was technically against Emily Whitmire but it was still we were in the tough house like we didn't

have our uh like our actual fight kits things like that right so Molly McCann, I feel like was really the first fight where I was like, this is a real UFC fight for me. And my flight was delayed. Everything. She missed weight. I feel like everything went wrong that week. I got booed walking out. So it's like, I don't know, just to get that success after that, I feel like was such a great thing for me. How did they treat you when you got out? After I got out, honestly, everybody was great. Even Molly invited me to her after party. My brother flew out there, so I ended up going out with him. Oh, that's cool. And we were just walking around Liverpool and everybody coming up to me trying to get

pictures. Liverpool fans were 100% supportive. It was great. That's cool. Of course they're going to boo you. Yeah. Just a girl. Oh, yeah, 100%. I expected every minute of it. Plus, what a personality she has. supportive it was great that's cool yeah of course they're gonna boo you yeah just a girl oh yeah 100

i expected every minute of it plus like what a personality she has like she's awesome i absolutely love her probably out of all the girls i fought in the ufc molly's definitely probably the top she's a character she's her and patty together are fucking amazing it's hilarious this should be a reality show she's absolutely like genuine sweetheart of a person and like you said a absolute character as well and she could fight yeah she can fight her ass off her stand-up is nasty it's really she's so tough she's so tough all girls i feel like from that area they got that extra little toughness to them and she definitely uh is superior in that yeah for her it just feels like grappling came like a little later for her and that that can be a problem with someone of your caliber you know

the thing about like grappling is god it takes so long to catch up and while you're catching up that person's still getting better if they're training every day and they're it's like when someone is at a super high grappling level and if you're just getting into grappling now, like you're just surviving. And it's a long time until you're doing anything other than surviving unless you're some athletic freak, unless you're some just unbelievable specimen of a human that just learns quicker than everybody else. Most of the time it's like really hard to catch up when you're a pure striker okay there's just so much to learn in jiu-jitsu even like i got my black belt i think two or three years ago now and i feel like i still don't know anything i feel like it's just like there's so much to learn so many different styles different things like even like leg locks i don't know a lot of i don't know deep into that game i know

good defensively but offensively i feel like that's a completely different world. The leg lock game is crazy because that just took over. It was so amazing to watch something that you used to get booed for. Like if they went to tournaments, especially in Brazil, people would boo you. They did not like when you were doing stuff like that. I guess because it really messes people up in training like they had to know it was really effective but they too many people had to ruin knees and they just decided like hey this is a bad idea and it might be a bad idea in the gi you know in the gi it's like whoa man you can't get out of that very well at least in no gi there's

like a little bit more maneuverability when someone's like grabbing your legs and they got your pants and they're holding on to the cuff in here, it's like, ooh, that's tight for a leg lock. That's scary. I'm almost more nervous competing nogi now than versus fighting MMA just because nogi girls are so well-versed in leg locks and that shit's dangerous. and leg locks and that shit's dangerous it's like that can put me out for six months a year plus where it's like the worst thing i've ever had happen in a fight is i got 11 stitches in my nose it's like besides that well and even that i grappled a month later who was that woman that heavily tattooed woman uh you you got her back too she had a crazy nickname, like the Demon Slayer. Oh, Maria Ogpova. Yes.

What was her crazy nickname? She has a wild nickname, right? Isn't it something like that? Yeah, it's something like that, yeah. When you were fighting her, she hit you with a bunch of really hard elbows while you were trying to take her down. That was just a maze that you just stuck with the path. You just kept, you just, you're like, uh-uh, I got you. I got you. I got, uh-uh, uh-uh, you're not getting away with this.

I'm going to hang on to you and I'm going to drag you to the ground. I'm going to get you. And when you finally did, I was like, damn, that was systematic. But you endured like some hard shots. Honestly, I don't think like, I don't think like I don't know I didn't really have any much damage off of those shots so I didn't really feel a lot of those and they weren't really like the only reason that I even thought about them is because the ref was like you need to do something I'm gonna stop this and I was like oh shit I gotta change something

up like but I was initially going for a knee bar when she was just hitting me with elbows. And then I gave up on that because of the ref. Isn't it interesting how subjective refereeing can be? And that there's some referees that are really good at letting people just fight out of stuff. And then there's some referees that just getting hit even with a few hammer fists that aren't going to stop you if you don't defend them some refs will just stop it right there it's just completely subjective like for that ref to tell you that like you can't endure these shots it's it's you don't like it at the time like actually they're not that hard it's it sounds bad but it doesn't really hurt i'm okay like you can't say that in the middle of a fight. So there's this weird communication issue.

He sees you getting hit by it. I saw you getting hit by those shots. I was like, Jesus Christ. Can you see if you can find that? See if you can find that. Because in that exchange, when you're trying to take her down, I'm like, Jesus. Those are some hard elbows. Travis Brown was the master of that.

Oh, yeah. I feel like no one had more power than him when he was delivering those elbows. And I think he kind of invented it, or at least he popularized it. We call it the Travis Brown because he would drive down those elbows when you were trying to take him down. That was a horrible place to be. I don't think I've seen people drop like I have with Travis Brown. Well, he obviously drilled it. It wasn't an improvised thing.

At least I don't think it was. It just seemed so well-timed. And the force that he could generate because he's so big and long. When you're a long person, like a John Jones type person, the amount of extra force that you have and all that length and torque. Yeah, so somewhere in the clinch, so we're going to get a view of your whole fight here. What is it like watching yourself fight?

Is it weird? I guess I don't know. I do it a lot. I use myself as motivation of how I should perform. Sometimes I watch my past wins just to really, I guess, relive that kind of feeling. So then it gives you something to chase the next fight.

Oh, that sounds, that's brilliant. That's a great way to do it. Especially since you've got these, you know, well-documented awesome videos from the UFC of your wins. I mean, it's so cool.

It's one of the coolest things ever to be a fan right now, that you can just watch fights at any time you want. Any time. Any time, instantly, you're watching fights. I'm a huge fan of the sport just in general, so just being able to do that, like look up any type of, any fight, anything you want, I'm like, it's crazy.

I love it. It's like the best time ever for high-level kickboxing. It's the best time for amateur wrestling.'s like the best time ever for high-level kickboxing. It's the best time for amateur wrestling. It's the best time for submission grappling. There's never been more people that have been more interested in submission grappling now. I think we got past the elbows here. This is where the chokes happen. Yeah.

First round. Yeah, first round. Oh, is that round two? We can still watch that, though. I still want to watch that choke. Skip to the end. I'll go back. Okay. Yeah, these are the still want to watch that choke. Skip to head. I'll go back. Okay.

Yeah, so is it right here he's telling you you have to do something? No, I had her butt on the floor by this point because I actually knew she had an injured knee going into this fight. Oh, how'd you know that? She talked about it in interviews, and I actually knew a couple people she trained with who told me. Oh, a bunch of rats. Yeah. Dirty rats. Dirty rats.

Do you feel bad taking that information? It is what it is. I definitely utilized it. Yeah, you have to. You'd be crazy not to. I probably wouldn't have committed to the knee bar so hard if I didn't know that knee injury was there. So it's like I started going for the knee bar and she just kept on hitting me with elbows. And then once we were on the floor, I think he thought I was injured because I was committing to the knee bar.

So I was trying to put hips down. So that's when he told me I needed to move. Why is it going in slow motion. Why is it going in slow motion? I don't know what's happening. Is someone breaking down some specific... No, it's on ESPN's website. Oh. It's just freaking out.

It's the Russians. The Russians don't like Americans winning. They don't like it. Go ahead. Okay. They don't like it. Okay. So at one point, you were getting drilled with elbows. I don't know if we're going to find it without watching the whole fight. But it was just an awesome performance overall.

That and the Molly McCann one. You've had a bunch of them. I think I was equally impressed with the Rose Namajunas grappling match. That was so slick. The way you took her back and controlling the position, you never lost an inch. You just kept progressing until you got the choke. It was awesome. I feel like my choking game is definitely different than anybody else's and it's something that is a feel that I've been working on for years and I feel like I still haven't even perfected it but I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to making it perfect and I think the rose grappling match was probably

one of the opportunities where I feel like I really got it just that little bit more close to perfect where she I was I wasn't even on her throat at first. She had her chin tucked and my hand was in poor position. And I feel like I was just able to walk it closer and closer until I was able to make that hole tighter. And she had to give up her throat at that point. Well, what I was super impressed with was your use of the shoulder, how you're using your right arm to control the shoulder because you don't quite have it but you've got a nice grip on the cup of the shoulder and you're using that leverage like that improvised then when you switch to the gable grip i was like oh

shit the gable grip was it but when you were using her shoulder i was like that's brilliant oh yeah dean always tells me he's like if it chin's tucked, you should be able to break it. You know, it's like the goal is to break the jaw. So just creating that pressure with just closing the circle, you know, trying to make that circle smaller. So I'm just inching my hand deeper, my head deeper until I can really just make it so it's too small. And I love what you said that you have like a feel for it. Because I think people would think of it like, oh, it's just like, you know, you know the movement. You do it, right? But it's just like everything else.

It's like playing guitar. It's like any other thing that you learn how to do that's difficult. There's like levels and levels and levels and levels and levels. And when you watch like really high level black belts going at it, going back and forth and trying to keep up with each other, it's like you're watching like the craziest kind of game ever. I'm like, I've taught my choke to multiple people and I feel like people just don't get it still because it's like it's just it's something I've worked on for years. So what's what's specific about your choke? It's just the way that I have my pressure. I feel like I can generally finish it with one hand. I never really look for the hook. So I'm

usually just searching for it opportunistically. So I get it whenever it's almost too late to defend it. And even just like the pressure of my choke, though, I think it's something that anybody could learn, but it's just a lot of patience because it's something that's so basic and so simple. But like I said, I've drilled it a thousand times and I don't think I have it right yet. So I think it's just you really have to put the time and effort into one specific motion, which a lot of people don't have time for. So you just over and over again drilled it or you just over and over again used it in training? What sparked this strangulation reign that you've been on? How did that start?

It's definitely both. I feel like a lot of my technique comes from Dean Thomas. He's the engineer behind a lot of whatever I do. And he kind of devised this way of going for the neck and just off-balancing opponents, attacking the throat, and we've been drilling it for years and years and years. And even, like, I feel like the way he's described it to me hasn't really clicked until, like, recently,

where we've been drilling it for years, and now it's like, all right, I kind of get this. Yeah, it's, um, The way you do it, it's so brilliantly the way it progresses. What's beautiful to watch, especially the Rose match in particular, is the squeeze that you put, the progression of it, is what you want to see at a really high level. That's what you want to see. And when someone executes and executes it on someone who is champion of the UFC,

it's really incredible. I mean, that was an amazing showcase for you. Oh, yeah, and into MMA it just plays in perfectly. Like my last fight with Piera Rodriguez, I was in mount throwing elbows the whole time, and every time she tried to turn her back a little bit, her coaches were like, no, no, don't give your back. So they're just making her lay on the ground and take elbows to the face instead of giving up her back so I'm like it's it's your you know the worst of two worlds there

like you get your choice do you have a is the rest of your game as strong as your choke game I think so I think my top pressure in jiu-jitsu is definitely something that a lot of girls, especially, have. Even a lot of guys, I feel like I get a lot of compliments. I feel like in the jiu-jitsu world, it's the only place where you can tell a girl she's heavy, and it's a compliment, you know? Right. You've got heavy hips.

What? Yeah. Everybody tells me that I'm really heavy, and I feel like it's that kind of top pressure which is going to be dominant in an MMA game. Yeah, it absolutely can be. I mean, you look at the guys from Dagestan, the Khabib disciples, Islam Akachev, Khabib, those guys, they just crush you. They get on top of you and crush you. When you see where really good, high-level submission artists get smushed by guys like Khabib.

You're like, wow. Like, that's some crazy. It's like there's layers and layers to everything. And we didn't know the layer of, like, controlling the legs with the legs until Khabib came along and did it. And when he would do it so thoroughly, you'd be like, Jesus Christ. He does this to everybody. thoroughly he'd be like jesus christ he does this to everybody like he didn't even have a bad moment you know until like there was like i get the glace and t-bow fight was a pretty close fight i believe and then one round with connor but even that round was like a round he took off you know

it's like that guy but the squeeze that guy had it's like everybody that trains him says you don't understand like you know it's like he weighs trains him says you don't understand like you know it's like he weighs 400 pounds like it doesn't even make any sense yeah that top control is just completely different and it's like i always say i'm like people hit a lot less like they don't hit as hard when they're on their back right so i'd rather have somebody on their back than standing face to face with me you know and? And you're draining them. Exactly. It's exhausting. That person carrying your weight, it's exhausting. You're always moving to try to defend. It's very difficult to get out of.

And especially with someone, if it's a superior grappler in the scramble, she's going to take your back. Exactly. Always looking for the submissions, the strikes. And if I'm on bottom, it's the strike, sweep, submit, or stand up, you know? We're just working for the finish constantly. Well, that's what I love about your style. And I think that's what makes it so fan-friendly, too.

It's so exciting. And I love the technique. The technique is so sharp. But you were saying something that I wanted to ask you to elaborate on. You said you don't even go for the hooks. You're so concerned with the choke that you'll, like, take the choke, even if you have no hooks and then get the hooks later. Uh, the hooks aren't even like, that's like last priority or I don't need them even. I don't think I had any hooks when I choked Rose. Uh, but I just, I have such a unique grip with

how I, with my head and hand position on my choke so it's just it doesn't really matter that's where my control point is it's not on the lower half of the body it's on the choke and usually when i have the choke before i get the hooks in it's like people aren't ready to defend it usually you put the hooks in and people are already here and now you have to hand fight and you're there for who knows how long right where if i get my choke first then it's like if i need the hooks for control, I can get them in, but you're already choking, so you're worried about that. So is this Dean's coaching?

Did he coach you to do it this way? Oh, yeah. He definitely came up with a whole game plan of that where it's just going for the choke just opportunistically. Wow. Just because you're so good at it. I feel like literally I've worked with Dean since day one, so I think he kind of also just molded this game plan for me.

That's awesome. He's the second best-dressed guy in MMA. It's just like a neck-and-neck with him and Bruce Buffer. I think you've got to give the nod to Buffer. Yeah, I think you have to give it to Buffer. He has such crazy suits. He has suits with pictures of Elvis inside of them and shit. He's like, every suit is weirder.

They're crazy. They're so beautiful, too. They're all perfectly tailored. Oh, yeah. He must have 100,000 of them. I mean, how many fucking suits does that guy have? He changes multiple times now, too. Oh, he's a maniac.

Main card suit. Yeah. Main card suit. Bro, his tailor must be balling. Because it's all custom made shit. It's beautiful. Oh, that's Miami? What's in there? That's him.

Oh, Vegas. Oh, it's all him. He's his own lining of his own jacket. Yeah, it's a comic book. How dope is it though when that guy yells your name? I don't know. Literally, last fight,

I had to think to myself, I'm like, all right, that's Bruce Buffard. Just focus on the fight. Just think about Pierre right now. Is it weird? It's definitely weird. I don't know.

Everything is weird about this for me. It's just like, I'm just like, I guess a socially awkward kind of, don't really put myself out there well I do with fighting but it's like I've never really put myself out there in life so it's like to be in these kind of positions it's just it's all a lot for me wow well it's amazing that the way you handle fighting you could handle this the same way you handle fighting you just get

comfortable with it I think that uh I don that for me, social situations are a lot harder than fighting situations. Wow! That's crazy. Has it always been like that? 100%. Since you were a child? Yeah. I feel like I've always been the socially awkward kid in the back of the class, like the nerd. Well, I

still am at the gym. But I volunteered with animals my whole life i uh volunteered at like the humane society a horse rescue uh wildlife rehab but just like animals were my thing and then it was just kind of left field i started kickboxing when i was 16 just for fun yeah i really don't know where it came, like what the idea was. Where'd you start? What gym? At Dean's gym.

Oh, okay. Wow, you got lucky. So exactly. One of Dean's pro fighters worked for my dad. So I wanted to start kickboxing and then my dad found out that this guy was a pro fighter for Dean. So he ended up finding his gym and that was the first gym I started at. Wow. Wow, what a great place to start. And so then you start kickboxing and how long before you decide, well, what about this MMA stuff? How long was that? I think it was probably like four or five months before I started taking the MMA class there, but I wasn't like thinking about fighting. It was just, uh, there was a kid who was on the wrestling team at my high school who started training at Dean's gym. And he was like,

oh, why don't you take the MMA class? And I thought, okay, I'll have a partner. Why don't I try it? And I just kept on doing it. And then I was training like every day for like three hours a night, you know? And they're like, all right, well, why don't we just get you a fight at this point wow what was it about fighting and martial arts that you became so obsessed with I really think it was a one I don't know what it was at first because I didn't start jujitsu especially in the gi until like a year after I started training but when I started gi. But when I started Gi Jiu Jitsu, I fell in love with that 100% where it's just the technique of it. And the little tiny details of Jiu Jitsu that matter so much. Like if you put your thumb on this side of the hand or on this side of the hand, it makes a huge difference. It's like the little tiny techniques that can make the difference where now 115 pound

girl at the time could do whatever she wanted to a 200-pound guy. I was manhandling these guys around the room. And I'm like, just because of these techniques that I learned. And I thought that was awesome. Yeah, that is an amazing thing. Jiu-jitsu is the one martial art that delivers as promised, where the smaller trained person can defeat the larger untrained person. Whereas a lot of other martial arts, I mean, you have a better chance.

But when they're really big, you know, and some guy's swinging, if he knows how to punch a little bit and you get clubbed with one of those giant hams, you get fucked up. But if you get into a struggle, like some sort of a scramble, and you knock into some chairs, and all of a sudden you get a hold of this person. Now he's fucked. That's what's crazy. It's like that a small person can physically control and submit a much stronger person regularly. It happens all the time. It happens with black belts. Even in striking, it's like a person cannot know anything, but if they're big enough, they throw their hand the right way, they can knock you out.

Yeah. If you get hit with Francis Ngannou's pinky, you're in trouble. Exactly. There's certain people that are so powerful. The idea that you're going to stand and trade with them is crazy. They're going to hit you once, and you're dead. It just doesn't work that well. Jiu-jitsu, it's just there's not the variant of space.

So there's not that element of guessing where it's like I can control and I can feel what you're going to do by touching you. It's like it makes it a lot easier. You're not guessing with that space of striking. You're also not guessing the variables, like how fast is this person? How fast am I accustomed to people punching me? Is this person much faster? am I accustomed to people punching me? Is this person much faster? Do I have to anticipate that? Because if you ever see like street fight videos, the most horrific ones are some poor asshole who wants to start a fight with someone who's a train fighter and the train fighter fucks him up.

But you could see like they have no idea how fast things can happen. I'm sure you've seen the Joe Schillingilling one yes joe shilling one's ridiculous but there's no way that guy could have known that that could happen that quickly there's no way and people don't expect like like for someone like me a lot of times i get oh uh i would never guess that you're a fighter for someone like joe shilling is still even like oh yeah you wouldn't. Looks like an axe murderer. You just see him walking around. Most people you don't expect that they're. Joe Schilling you don't expect it?

He looks like a psycho to me. But say like Ryan Hall. Ryan Hall is a great example. You don't expect him to be a fighter, but it's like you never know what somebody is capable of when it comes to sports like this. Oh, for sure with jiu-jitsu, Mikey Musumechi. That's the best example. Yeah. Mikey is a stone-cold killer.

And he looks like a guy who comes over to fix your computer. Like, he looks like the friendliest super nerd. I remember this video. Oh, this video's horrible. This is a street fight in a parking garage. Have you seen this? No. These guys start fucking with this dude in a parking garage.

The guy's trying to get away. No, he fucked the other guy up before this. This is the shorter version. Okay, this is the shorter version. So this guy, he's like, come on, you want some? And he moves forward. This guy leg kicks him.

And then this is where it gets ugly. Punches him. Bam. Bam. He's out. I know something. I know something. punches him bam yeah you don't want that like what it's awesome to see that stuff works right for people

like hey this is real someone tries to attack you you have an upper hand but also like what are you doing yeah these fucking people I've never been in a street fight in my life good for you like I don't intend You have an upper hand. But also, like, what are you doing with these fucking people? I've never been in a street fight in my life. Good for you. Like, I don't intend to ever.

But it's just, I don't get it. Like, yeah, there's, I don't see a use for fighting outside the cage for me. There's a lot of people with anger management issues. And then there's criminals, too. You know, bad folks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff in the world. But I just, for me, I think it's fascinating that you are more afraid of social interaction that you're afraid of cage fighting. That might be one of the greatest

lines that anyone has ever said. I think that's going to get you a lot of fans for real for me it's just like literally I never really uh did any kind of interviews or media or anything like that until I got in the tough house so that's going from absolutely zero to 100 percent like what was that like you were like 22 at the time I was 22 and I was having interviews every day, cameras on you 24-7. Literally after every single interview, I had to go and change my shirt because I'd be dripping sweat like I just got out the sauna. Whoa. Just so nervous after every single interview. Do you think they brought you into the house knowing that you were nervous too?

Like that you're a little socially awkward in that regard and like that maybe that would make good television? I guess I never thought of it in that way. Obviously they brought you in because you're a little socially awkward in that regard and like that maybe that would make good television i guess i never thought of it in that way obviously they brought you in because you're skillful but they also cast that show as a reality show it's a very cleverly done show you know like it's it's smart the way they do it they like even with what they're doing now with conor mcgregor and michael chandler it's great but but perfect shit talking when Conor tells him, you'll do as you're told. It's amazing. I hope that fight takes place.

But it's such a show, right? So it's not just an athletic competition. It's also they want to make sure the people are fun. Oh, yeah. Our season seemed pretty, like, tame, though, I feel like, in general. We had a lot of – there was me and Montana De La Rosa were the two, like, younger girls. And then everybody else, I feel like, was, like, older and more mature. Like, around, like, at least, like, 30s.

And, like, they were, like, I don't know, nobody was trying to start drama. Nobody was trying to, like, get in each other's faces or we didn't have any altercations. It was, like, it was a pretty chill season. That's great. So no one ever encourages, like, any altercations it was like it was a pretty chill season that's great so no one ever encourages like any bickering or anything like that they don't ever tell you hey you know this bitch has been saying some shit does anybody ever do that no nobody ever really does anything like that but it's just like the boredom gets to you if anything else it's like i feel like no phones right no phones no no music, no books, no nothing.

No books. Nothing at all. Oh, my God. Nothing? So it's like... Can you have a notebook? You're allowed to get a notebook, and then they gave us... We asked for coloring books, and they gave us sketch pads.

Oh, my God. I think I would go nuts. That sounds like one of those anti-tech retreats. Exactly. Where they try to weed people off their tech addictions. I was just talking to one of the boys who's actually on the Conor McGregor season over the weekend. And he said the exact same thing as me. He was like, it was the best and worst experience of my life.

Because it's like when you're in the gym, there's so many highs. It's so great. But then when you go back to the house, you're just sitting there for hours. And you're in the gym there's so many highs it's so great but then when you go back to the house you're just sitting there for hours and you're bored and it sucks what do you guys do to kill time can you play games do they have like they used to have pool right yeah they'll uh i think they had a pool table and a chess table and then they have like the list where you can order anything oh so you could order like monopoly yeah so we would order a bunch of bullshit just try and entertain ourselves god did you both did you have good conversations

uh or was it weird because you're all competitors it's weird well not because we're competitors because i'm weird that's awesome i'm like i felt like, especially back then, I wasn't able to just, I don't know, acclimate to that. Going into a house with 16 different girls that I don't really know. Right. Yeah, a completely alien experience. And you're feeling a little bit awkward, and you're also 22. And then also, bam, now you're on TV. And it's my first time really leaving home, I would say, for a long period of time.

So it was definitely a big experience, a lot to take on. How long ago was that now? Six years. Six years. So would you say that now you're entering into your fighting prime? Do you think that's happening right now? Oh, yeah. I think this is just the beginning of my prime.

I'm just getting into where I've really found the right combination for everything, and I feel like I'm just getting better every fight. Are you ranked right now? Where are you at? My next fight is against the number 15 girl, Tabitha Rickey. Interesting.

She's tough. That'll be fun. That'll be a good one. Yeah, I'm like, it's coming up quick, June 24th. Oh, wow. That is quick. How many would you, what is like your ideal camp size, like in terms of weeks? I would say probably about six to eight weeks. I like just to get focused on that opponent, really start breaking down their style and game planning for them specifically. But it's like with the UFC, you never know what you're getting. Right.

Like how often do they call you last minute? I've gotten a handful of last minute ones. And I feel like it's almost just as bad getting like the one 16 weeks out and things like that because you're just sitting there waiting for so long. Or you run the risk of overtraining. Have you ever done that too early in the camp i feel like i train year-round no matter what so it's like it's never really like we're i don't we push it the last couple weeks but that's about it so really so you're just always

training so hard that you can essentially take well that's great if you want to take a short notice fight yeah because you're always prepared i train probably about four or five hours in the morning and about an hour at night even if i'm off camp like in camp out of camp it doesn't matter on the same schedule just obsession yeah i got nothing better to do but i mean what an amazing way to get better you know i mean like when you think about grappling and you think about Gordon Ryan, no one doubts that he's the best no-gi grappler ever, right? But no one also doubts that he works 365 days a year. That's an insane work schedule, and these are insane results. And you're essentially doing that in MMA.

That's what I think you see with a lot of black belts or people who are at a high level is they stop drilling they stop doing the stuff that like gordon ryan still drills every day and that's why he's so good at what he does and it's like people at a high level in mma they're just doing what the black belts do and sitting on the side until it's time to roll you know and it's like you got to be drilling every day you got to be putting in the hours uh like my coaches are there with me uh every hour of the day if i wanted for them to be putting in the hours uh like my coaches are there with me uh every hour of the day if i wanted for them to be you know they're willing to put in the work and like i said as fighters we got nothing better to do literally this is what we do like you got to treat it as like you're going to school a doctorate you know well i think that approach your approach

is perfect that's the right way to do it. I really do. I mean, but everybody's different, you know. People have like different ways of fighting and different ways of approaching fighting. Some are much more chaotic than like you and your style. But I think that's the best way to look at it. And I think too often people love to roll because rolling is so fun. It's so fun that you just don't even want to do all that other stuff. Let me get warmed up a little bit and let's fucking go. Let's go.

You just want to go because it's so exciting. It's the most fun thing, and it's exercise. So it's like engaging intellectually. It's physically. It's emotionally engaging. It's like sometimes you're like, fuck. You're going to tap and you don't. And there's a lot going on.

There's battles going on. And it's a great workout. And if you can do it, and if you can do it on a regular basis, it could change your life. It could change your life. And it's available to everybody. Like this idea that it's all brutes. When you go to 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu, you see these dudes who look like skateboarders and surfers and they'll strangle you it's weird it's like they're super nerd assassins there's a ton of them and you're one of them on the female side yeah i feel like that's uh i don't know for me it's like i said i've never been like someone

athletic i volunteered with animals growing up you know I was always the quiet kid in the back of the class. And it's like, just, I don't know what jujitsu is being able to be that, like, I don't know, be that voice in a way, you know, being that way to express myself. And it's, I feel like it, it was just like, completely not who I was when I was little, you know, it's just, it's a complete, yeah's a complete left field. But it's you. You're just growing. This is the new you. Right? I mean, it is you. And if you continue

and you become champion, you're going to have to do a lot of this shit. Oh yeah? You're going to have to do a lot of this shit. You know? I mean, how many fights do you think you are away from a title shot? It's a stacked division. I don't think I'm too far away from it currently.

I think that after this fight, I would like—I'm not looking past Tabitha at all, but I'm also, like, looking at the trajectory of where I'm going. And, obviously, Mackenzie Dern just put on a great performance a couple weeks ago. And she has the second most submissions in women's history, and I have the first. So it's like I think I would like to, you know, just solidify that. Everybody calls her the submission queen, even though I'm like I have more than her. Well, she's pretty awesome, but you are too. That would be a crazy fight.

And I think after that fight, I wouldn't be too far away from the title fight. I was very impressed with her against Angela Hill. Angela Hill is so tough. She was taking so many shots. Like, oh, my God. And she just can't fight, would not give up that arm bar. Like, so many times, McKenzie came so close to getting that arm bar

and Angela was just not giving up. I think that's the best McKenzie we've seen so far. Ever. It was incredible. Incredible performance. And super aggressive too. Exactly. That's what I feel like was so beneficial for her.

She doesn't have to worry about getting taken down typically, you know? So she can be a little bit reckless and come in with those strikes. And that's exactly what she needed to do with Angela Hill. And she was able to do it. And she's dangerous on her feet now, too. It used to be just the ground. But now she's winging bombs. She hit Angela with a knee.

You know, she's very dangerous. He says she doesn't have to be scared, you know? So she can throw, overcommit to any strike, throw with all her power. And it doesn't matter because it's like, put me on my back. Like, thank you. Like, come into my guard. Yeah, there's guards, you know, and then some, I mean, her guard is fucking nasty. Her guard is so high level.

Everything she does is so high level. It's like when you can watch jiu-jitsu like that in mma like a real world champion when it goes to the ground like her like moving from position to position to position to finally securing it's like woof it's so quick she's so good so good and so technical you know her dad's a legend it's just like that kind of like high level jiu-jitsu and mma some of my favorite shit to watch you know there's there's certain people that just have either one or two elite high level moves that they could pull off and when they do it you just like you're doing this to the best of the best in the world yeah i feel like with jujitsu it's just like i don't just moving with people so much i feel like it's so impressive to watch how people can just float on top of people it's just like i don't know just moving with people so much i feel like it's so impressive

to watch how people can just float on top of people it's like knowing when to control and when to release almost you know when you really need it i don't some people are specialists at control but like for someone like me i feel like i'm i'm better at flowing you know and letting people fall make their own mistakes and fall into things where it someone like Khabib is that pressure kind of fighter. Right. You're better at finding the openings as you threaten them in different areas and just move into position and hold it.

Or not necessarily me threatening them, but them falling into their own mistake. I feel like I'm just sitting there doing damage until I see the opening, until I see my opportunity, until I see that one mistake that you made and I capitalize on it. And is this how you've always done it or is this something you're doing now better than you've ever done before? This is something I'm definitely doing now better than I've ever done before. Was this the same approach that you had in the beginning of your career when you first started? Was this the same approach that you had in the beginning of your career when you first started?

I don't think as much just because now I feel like I went from a jiu-jitsu girl who did MMA to an MMA fighter more. Whereas like now, I don't know, like a lot of my early submissions were arm bars off my back where I was just comfortable playing guard. I didn't care because I was good at jiu-jitsu whereas like now I'm always looking to do damage wherever I'm at typically uh like to sit on top and do heavy ground and pound and heavy top pressure until they're like all right we need to get this girl off me I need to stand up and then that's when I capitalize typically off a lot of times off the stand up is where I find my choke or if they're just staying on their back is where my arm bar open up or like head and arms other opportunities where I just don't like to give up that top position yeah top position so so important it's just if you can control the top

it's just much easier for you than it is for the other pro and it's also kind of humiliating someone's on top you in front of all these people punching you in the face it's also just a lot to carry on top of you it makes it you gas people punching you in the face. It's also just a lot to carry on top of you. It makes you gas. Yeah, it sucks. It makes it heavy, yeah. And I feel like nobody understands the cardio that it takes to get up and get down and get up and get down in MMA versus, like, if you're just doing jiu-jitsu

or you're just doing kickboxing rounds. It's like once you mix it all together, it's just – it changes the pace. Clearly, yeah. I remember one of the most brilliant things that when George St. Pierre fought BJ Penn, he wanted to grapple with him immediately. He wanted to really get a hold of him right away to wear his arms out. He goes, I wanted his arms to be filled with blood. So like, it changes it. It changes your ability to throw punches. It changes your ability to get snap off, to explode. you're kind of gassed out because you've been pummeling and trying to avoid being taken to the ground it's just this when people don't know

when they see like your fights these these exchanges against the cage those are some of those grueling moments in all of MMA just the battle to see who wins this thing yeah exactly especially against the cage honestly a lot of those battles i'm just like if we can find an opportunity to break off i'm willing to because it's like if i didn't get the takedown initially then i'm just going to be grueling like you said like it's going to be hard work to get them down where it's like why don't let's break off reset and find the opportunity find the right timing for the takedown instead of sitting here and just grinding it out and just tiring both of us out it's um it's such a an interesting time for uh mma because you're seeing people like yourself

that are young and grew up with it and got to watch it on television and got it what was the first mma fight that you ever saw i think the first one that i ever watched was uh john jones and i think it was rashad evans so you are watching it at a very high level as opposed to a lot of the people that like even john jones the stuff he got to see was stuff from 10 years before that. And like the kids of today, the kids like yourself, like you, the people growing up now, you guys have the most amazing library of champions to study in all the different forms of martial arts. And to see people like yourself that are putting it together so obsessively and to watch it succeed over and over again inside the octagon. It's fucking cool.

I love it. It's such an exciting time. I feel like it's the beginning of MMA as a sport, where it's like for so long it's been jiu-jitsu guys who do a little bit of striking or like wrestlers or strikers. But now it's like it's people putting it together and making styles and systems based upon these things.

Where it's like, I feel like honestly, Dean, obviously I work with him, but he's one of the best in trying to innovate. And that's why I appreciate his mind so much of just trying to make it MMA as a sport whenever he's on the techniques

that he has me drilling, where I feel like it's like Donahert innovated the no-gi game with leg locks. It's like we need to change this from being kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, and wrestling to being mixed martial arts. Dean always has awesome input whenever we're doing the shows and they cut to him. He'll always point out something that I probably missed. And when you're watching these high-level people that are coming up right now,

there is still the room for the specialist. There's still the room for, like, the Anderson Silva-style striking. The problem is, with all fights, is they all start standing up. And if you are standing up with a guy like Alex Bejeda, like, you're in a world of danger. This is a terrifying world. Like,

so there are still those specialists that are so goddamn dangerous at this one aspect of the game that they can get through. And the problem with like, I always wonder, will there be like, cause Israel is a striking specialist too, but will there be an MMA fighter that is complete everywhere to the point where they can stand with a world champion kickboxer? Is that a real thing? Or is that only

a few freaks? Or is that it seems like in order to be a world champion kickboxer, you have to really dedicate yourself only striking the timing that's involved the distance. No, you're not thinking about takedowns You're not thinking about anything else for you to be a world champion MMA fighter you have to be well versed in so many different things Can't do you really have the time to dedicate to get to the kickboxing level that this guy is and every fight starts? Kickboxing every fight starts way apart from each other and when you got a guy like beta Moving towards you with that crazy style, you're like, oh, Jesus Christ. Or Adesanya standing in front of you, moving.

You're like, this motherfucker has me three moves ahead. We haven't even started exchanging yet. Yeah, I guess you got to hope to get those guys on their back quick. That's what I'm saying. But it's interesting to watch, like, the evolution of Robert Whittaker. You know, because Robert Whittaker, you know, he evolved so much more from the first fight to the second fight. He got so much better.

Yeah, no, I don't know. It's definitely, when you have a good striker, it's hard. Obviously, like we discussed earlier with the space, you know, you can never guess what's going to happen. But it's just like, I feel like if you are a good grappler or a good wrestler and you are able to get it to the mac you can be that much more effective than having a good striker in front of you yes well you certainly can the the difference is you can control what's happening when if you can get someone and you get on top of them right that what i always wonder is like I wonder if there are the people like Pejeta or of that ilk, Cedric Dumbay, who I think is now going to fight for PFL.

Have you ever seen that guy fight? No. Holy shit. He's a glory world champion kickboxer and he's a bad man. And he has a crazy work ethic too. He used my gym when he was in town and he has a crazy work ethic too he used my gym when he was in town and He has a coach and they do these strength and conditioning routines excuse me They do these strength and conditioning routines where

it's um like one round of sprinting on the one of those self propelled treadmills and and then one round of going hard on the bag, and then one round of plyos, and they're just rotating back and forth between all these different exercises. His cardio is off the charts. And he's like, that's it. That's the game plan.

The game plan is you put heat on them with technique and athleticism and strategy, but you put heat on them, they can't keep up. Because they're not going to work that hard. If you get to that level of fitness, you can have this extra thing that other people just don't have. And Cedric Dube has that extra thing. But can he wrestle?

Is he going to be able to stuff takedowns? How are these guys going to deal with getting him to the ground? Because as you're moving in on him, you could get any second you get knocked unconscious it can come out of nowhere and he might just take a wild shot at you because he doesn't want to get taken down maybe he just maybe says let's see let me just throw a head kick you know it's like i like watching that too i i love watching someone like yourself i love watching these these MMA fighters of today. They're these full, complete artists. Get some of his highlights.

Not the training highlights, but I know he's been doing a lot of MMA training. But go to his kickboxing highlights. His kickboxing highlights are preposterous. He's a bad man. And he's got some vicious knockouts. And he's just clever in there. He's just clever. I love the way he's fighting.

That guy's Nicky Holtzkin, who's a beast. I mean, Doombay is in constant pressure. Like, you don't get breaks with him. If you get a break, it's because he wants you to have a break. I mean, he just swarms on dudes. I just feel like if you look at that pressure in MMA, it's like it would be impossible to maintain with the

variable of takedowns. Look at that slip. It would be impossible. You're true. It's absolutely. Watch this when he misses. Look at this. Oh. Just chilling. He's actually a comedian. He's a comedian in France.

It's crazy. He's one comedian in France. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's crazy. That's crazy, yeah. And he's one of the best kickboxers alive. Multi-talented. Very multi-talented. Super funny guy, too. And he, you know, if he can figure out the grappling, my question is always like, is it better to be well-rounded or is it better to be a specialist? I used to think it'd be better to be a specialist wrestler.

around it or is it better to be a specialist? I used to think it'd be better to be a specialist wrestler. I felt like, and I still think that to a certain extent, that at least the base beginning of amateur wrestling, those guys seem to be the toughest. They seem to be, they have the most mental fortitude. The grind of becoming a successful wrestler

is unlike any other athletic pursuit that I ever, I only wrestled in high school for one year is one of the hardest things in my life. It's fucking hard. But these guys are particularly good at the most important thing, getting the fight to the ground and getting on top of people. That's the number one thing. Those guys are the best at it.

So I feel like that's the cornerstone. But every fight does start standing up. And so then you get a guy like Mirko Krokop who figures out how to takedowns and now you're dealing with one of the most elite kickboxers alive and it's horrifying right so it's I always wonder like what is the best approach do you think it's to be a fully rounded mixed martial artists putting all your time and all these different things or do you think maybe there's some room for the idea of like the world champion specialist? I think it's best to focus on everything.

Try to make yourself a mixed martial artist. I think if you are a specialist to begin with, say like someone like him who's a world champion kickboxer, you probably shouldn't be investing like all your time into jiu-jitsu at that point. you probably shouldn't be investing all your time into jiu-jitsu at that point. You should probably stay the specialist, go to MMA and learn how to defend takedowns. You shouldn't be learning how to finish arm bars necessarily, putting a gi on day one. You don't need to learn that at this point. You should focus on what you're good at. But if you are day one, I think you should focus on everything and putting everything all together.

Because it's like, I can have someone who is a better wrestler than me, but I can guarantee you they won't want to stay in my guard. For me especially, I think the two most important are striking and jiu-jitsu because they are the finishing elements. So those are the ways I can take people out of the fight. Whereas wrestling, I can control a little bit more, but I don't have any finishing options. Well, that's a brilliant way of looking at it. I think you're right. I think if you're starting from the beginning, I think learning everything would be very advantageous because you wouldn't want to think you're, you know, you wouldn't want to think you're safer than you are. And then someone takes you down at will and you're like, oh, Jesus.

You're like if you just learned martial arts, like striking martial arts, and you don't know. Maybe I should learn jiu-jitsu. Maybe I need to learn a little bit of this stuff. That's probably not the moment to learn. No. But I do think there's some room for people that, at least if you come, maybe it's like if you get to a certain age,

maybe at a certain age you must go all in on all MMA. But if you could be a specialist early in your life, like if you're a specialist in striking, I think maybe early in your life, you would have a, like, if you look at all the best kickboxers and even all the best boxers, for the most part, a lot of them start when they're very young. It seems to be like striking for some reason. I think there's freaks, there's, there's people that just learn it. And even when they're in their thirties, they can learn it and they get really good at it. But for a lot of people, there's something about there's there's people that just learn it and even when they're in their 30s they can learn it and they get really good at it but for a lot of people there's something about the timing of striking that if you don't pick it up when you're really young you don't really achieve

this sort of there's like a plateau for a lot of folks have you ever noticed that uh for me i'm like i don't striking has never been like my forte i started striking before i started jujitsu it's just jujitsu just clicked for me. Striking, I feel like it just takes that little bit more of like athleticism, I guess, where it's like, I'm not the most athletic fighter. So it's like, I feel like I can't really use my mind to just make quicker decisions in striking as much as I can in jujitsu where it's easier to. Well, that's a brilliant way to do it. I think, you know, especially for your mind and your approach, striking is just a means to an end, right?

You're just trying to strangle people. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's like I'm not going to say I'm never going to have a knockout because obviously I want, that's the goal is to be able to develop power. But it's just, it's so much easier for like a heavyweight to just throw his fist and knock somebody out where someone, a girl, like any of the 25 or 15 or just the smaller girls, it's like, it's really hard to develop that kind of power unless you're born with it. Well, that's why Valentina is so scary.

Valentina Shevchenko, when she landed that head kick on Jessica Ai, I was like, that was nasty. Oh, yeah, nasty knockouts like that with girls, I feel like it's just, they're not common. So when you see them, it's like you've got to have respect for that girl. Yeah, well, Valentina, that fucking left high kick, holy shit. And she set it up to the body before that. She's so good. And she's always, like, light on her toes.

You know, her style is so interesting. You know, it's a very, like, when she, you know, she lost the title now, obviously. And I would love to see the rematch because the fight was awesome. But if you look at her, like, the best moments in her career, she like always moving always on her toes perfect technique with striking yeah she's rarely out of position i feel like that's one of the things i've always admired about her it's like it's it's hard to do what alexa did is to be able to get her out of position and be able to capitalize on it get her to like mentally not be there for a split second and be able to see that opportunity isn't it crazy that she did it off a spinning back kick?

I feel like Valentina was just kind of like, this chick won't go away. I thought this was going to be easier. And she started making like not the smartest decisions. You really think that's what happened? You don't think maybe it was just fatigue? I think a little bit of that, but a little bit of frustration maybe too too. Valentina was winning the fight and had a lot of good opportunities, but Alexa was the only one walking in there knowing that she was going to win that fight no matter what that night. Well, is that real? Can you know that you're going to win no matter what? You can have that attitude.

You could say afterwards, I knew I was going to win no matter what. attitude. You could say afterwards, I knew I was going to win no matter what. But that's two world titles that were essentially lost to a spinning back kick miss. You ever see Chris Weidman? When Chris Weidman fought Luke Rockhold, he was winning the fight. It was like a really good fight. And then he throws a spinning back kick and he misses and Luke Rockhold takes him to the ground And beats the fuck out of him and it was a horrible beating. It was it was a really dominant performance by Rockhold it was hard to watch and That he lost the title and then you look at Valentino same thing spinning back kick misses Alexa Grasso gets her gets her back chokes her crazy It's like two world titles on aning back kick misses. Alexa Grosso gets her, gets her back, chokes her. Crazy.

It's like two world titles on a spinning back kick miss. I feel like it was just like, I don't know, it wasn't a smart thing. It was just like a lapse of thought for her for that second where she was just like, all right, I'm going to throw this and Alexa just capitalized. She saw the opportunity and took it. Well, if she landed it, then it would have been something different. She has a nasty spinning back kick. She really does.

So this is Weidman. They were in the middle of this fight. Weidman was moving forward on Rockhold. And Weidman was the fucking man. This was a tough fight. Very tough fight. But Weidman's putting all this pressure on him, kicks him to the body. Looks like he's putting it to him. kick so right there right there one it's like he's beating him up like he's big

brother in him right and he throws a lazy wheel kick and he gets taken down and now Luke Rockhold's a motherfucker on the ground and that boy's big Luke Rockhold's big you on the ground. And that boy's big. Luke Rockhold's big. You know, he made 185 for about 15 seconds. He's well into the 200s, I'm sure, when he's fighting. He's a big fellow. Big, long, strong as shit with crazy top pressure. And so here you go.

Weidman's exhausted now and I can't believe he's in this position. It's a terrible position to be in. I mean, Rockhold's training with DC. He's training with Khabib. He's training with all those people down there. All those animals in AKA. Cain Velasquez. It's just a savage soup down there. Yeah, exactly. And so Luke Rockhold, people forget.

People see some of his losses and see him in the later stages of his career. When Luke Rockhold was a champ and this right here that he won the title, this motherfucker had staff. He came into this fight on antibiotics. He's just gotten over staff. You know how hard it is to get over antibiotics.

Fuck you up. And to be winning this fight in this way is fucking incredible. And all off of Weidman missing one shot, really. Look, I mean, he's just beating the shit out of him. It's hard to watch, man, because Weidman is really kind of helpless at this point, and he's so battered from these elbows.

And he's too tough. He's so tough, the guy will never quit. And so this is one where I'm like, maybe this could have been stopped earlier. You could stop this at any second right here. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't you think? It keeps going, too.

Bro, this is crazy. This is crazy. That might have been the round. I think it was the round, even. I think they keep going. What? Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh.

What? It went on after that. That's right. That's right. And it gets... Oh, my God. It happens again, though. It happens right. That's right. And it gets, oh, my God, it happens again, though. It happens again. That's right.

Oh. How tough is Chris Weidman? That motherfucker is so tough. Whew. But sometimes careers can change off of one missed technique, which is one of the wildest things about MMA. Careers can change. Anything can happen at anything at any moment. I feel like it's like,

it's like you can go in and you can be a better striker than the person. You can just get caught. It can be their night. They can show up better. It's like, there's a lot of my fights where it's like, I feel like I am the better fighter, but they showed up that night. It's, it's, is it all, it's always a learning process though, right? Like every experience that you have, you're putting into your mental database of how to deal with different conditions, how to deal with different thoughts

that come in your head. Oh yeah, I feel like it's a huge learning process. And for me, I think, I didn't really get a lot of regional experience. I was three and two when I came into the tough house. Wow. So I'm going on, my next fight will be my 15th UFC fight. a regional experience. You know, I was three and two when I came into the tough house. Wow. So I'm going on.

My next fight will be my 15th UFC fight. So you go three and two, tough house, and then Liverpool. Yeah, exactly. That's so crazy. Oh, my God. What a wild ride. Yeah. So a lot of my learning experience was in the UFC.

In the UFC in front of the whole world. Yeah, exactly. Chris Weidman, when he knocked out Anderson Silva, that was another one of those, how did that happen? What is going on moments? Where, like, everybody thought that Anderson Silva was untouchable at that point. That was that moment where, you know, you realize, like, this sport is nuts. Even the people that you think are the greatest of all time, they can get cracked and knocked unconscious.

Like Leon Edwards, when he knocked out Kamaru Usman in the last round. Like, what? What? Kamaru? When he lands that head kick and you see Kamaru, who's like one of the most durable guys that's ever lived, he gets cracked, he gets back up, he seems fine always in every fight. And this one, he gets put out. It almost seemed surreal. Like when Tyson got knocked out by Buster Douglas like what like what is happening it's crazy it's like like you say you can be the better fighter you could beat win that fight nine out of ten times and

then just that one time is that night is that that's what happens especially at a high level right especially at a high level it's like you can't make any kind of mistake it's like on a regional level say you make a little mistake but they're not going to capitalize on it because they're just, they're not smart enough, maybe, you know? It's like a lot of, or like whatever it is, but then once you get up to a high level, it's like, these people are good. If you make that one little mistake, then you're getting knocked out. You're getting subbed. You don't have those kind of opportunities. So it's definitely a learning experience there there's also the difference between people that that are fighting that train

and people that train like you train there's a big difference the fact that you do it constantly and consistently it's just such an advantage i believe because you know i mean i know it just from training in jujitsu even when i was training like four days a week, like really regularly, I would be in with those guys that are training five, six, seven days a week, and they would be getting better than me. And I knew it. You could tell. It's in your head.

Like, okay, do you want to go psycho and be here seven days a week? Or do you want to try to live a life? Like, how are you going to balance this? They're going to get better than you. It's impossible to stop. It's just a thing that people do. If you can dedicate enough time and focus to something over long periods of time if you really stay true to it you get better and better and better and when i see someone like yourself that does that and goes from the tough house and goes to that fight in liverpool to me

that's like one of the great american success stories. That was fucking, I mean, that's really amazing. It's an amazing thing to be this person who's a socially awkward kid. And then all of a sudden you strangle some girl in her hometown in front of the whole world in this crazy arena. Like that's wild. Oh, no, it's 100%. Everything is surreal about it to me. So it's like, for me, it's like, I'm just a kid who loves this shit. I love this sport and that's about it. I love showing up every

day. I love going to the gym every day. And it's like, even on my bad days, it's better than going to any other job. Like I love training more than anything else. Like I can always remember it's like, I've worked at vet's offices. I worked at Chili's right before I got into the tough house. And I'm like, my worst days at the gym are better than any day I had to go to one of those jobs. Of course. I remember, like, getting off of a shift at Chili's, getting off of a shift at the vets' office, working, like, 10 hours a day and just going straight to the gym. And there's nothing better than the feeling of the mats underneath your feet. Wow. That's just what I love more than anything. You can't beat that

kind of dedication. That dedication trumps everything. Cause even if you're really, really disciplined, you're enthusiastic too. Like there's like discipline to get you through like a five mile run, you know, but like, it's not gonna, you're not gonna learn as much just with discipline. Like you kind of enthusiasm and discipline is really the right combination. You can't just be disciplined and just kind of trudge through it because the person that's more interested in it, that's more passionate about it, more excited about it, that person is more jazzed up. They're going to learn it quicker. And they're going to put it on you quicker. It's like – it's the ultimate testing ground for ideas and focus.

It really is. I don't get people who don't train out of camp. It's the ultimate testing ground for ideas and focus. It really is. I don't get people who don't train out of camp. They're like, oh, yeah, I took like a month off or something. Like, what did you do? Do you do anything other than train? Like, what is fun time? Nothing really. No hobbies?

You don't play golf? Nothing? I have like a, like I live in Miami, so it's like I'll go out like paddle boarding sometimes things like that uh but that's really like training is so much of my life and I feel like it's like a lot of the times I'm not training I just don't want to do anything because I'm tired I'm exhausted from training yeah I think Masayama said that about his karate students I think they were talking about why they don't I think it's Masayama they that about his karate students. I think they were talking about why they don't – I think it's Masayama. It's not that they're more noble.

They're tired from training. Something like that. I'm pretty sure I fucked that up. But, yeah, if you're training all the time, like that's why street fights seem so stupid. You know, like, oh, my God, that's like more training. Yeah, exactly. Get out of here. More training with danger and weapons yeah no i'm like i don't i don't get how people are so confident to get in

street fights crazy right it's that's like you said without weapons like that's a crazy thing to me you don't know when somebody has a weapon you don't people people shoot people just be nice let's not fight exactly there's so many fucking loons out there, though. Have you ever had a girl come to the gym specifically to try to train with you? To come train with me? Yeah, definitely. I train at a smaller gym, the Goat Shed in Miami. That is a wild place that you train at.

Yeah, it is. I love that you train there. Those fellows are wild. Yeah, my coach, awesome. He has, like, a controlled chaos going on in there. But they're getting good. Oh, yeah. Everybody's getting good.

Like I said, we're there at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m. Then I'm doing cardio after. Everybody's there, focused, working. It's like I feel like people see all the crazy shit online and don't think we're actually training, we're actually working. But it's like there's so much technical ability that's behind all the chaos that you guys see. Oh, yeah. No, for sure. You could see that on Instagram.

But to the casual observer, I see what you're saying. But the infectious energy in that gym is so apparent that it comes out through Instagram. That's how you know it's a legit gym. It's a little wild. Bass Rootin bassito he was just here yeah he was there he's the fucking man last week i want to say we had a seminar he's the fucking man i love that dude okay some girl had her legs open i don't know what that was all about. Don't look at that one, Jamie. Yeah, Miami's a wild-ass place.

It's actually not a bad post. It's not? It's clever. It's clever? She's selling glasses. Oh, you click it and it's something else? Oh, she's selling sunglasses? Oh, glasses.

That's genius. You got to entice them, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of dirty people get the clickbait what do you think about fighters starting only fans is that nuts uh yeah i don't know it's not my thing definitely like obviously like i have friends who do it things like that but it's just i don't know it's it i feel like you you gotta be what you want. I feel like it's hard to be committed to fighting when you're into doing any. Like if you're taking pictures and looking cute and doing things like that, that takes time where it's like, I don't have time for that shit. It's not just that.

But then that probably makes you as much money as fighting. Yeah, that's also a thing about it too. Or more money. There's a lot of girls making more money than fighting. I'm sure. I'm not knocking it. If I was a girl, I'd be in my underwear for sure. I'd be like, come see this.

Give me money. Especially if I was young. If you're a young girl, I mean, I'm not encouraging anyone to start an OnlyFans. But I am saying, like, what is worse? What is worse? Someone looking at your butt or, you know, you having to work some stupid job for four months? I can't remember who it was, but there's a girl, she had an OnlyFans and she was a fighter

and she tweeted one. She's like, you guys can pay me to use my body to fight people, but you don't want me to, like, pay me to use my body to, like, on OnlyFans. Like, you guys like you guys are just someone's telling her not to do it yeah i don't believe in that i don't think you should be able to tell anybody what to do with their personal life especially like social media personal life like do whatever you want to do you want to show everybody about go ahead you know i mean the thing is then your butt's on the internet for the rest of your life and that's okay too. I think probably there's going to be no privacy in about a decade or so.

I don't think any – I think we're going to be like – remember back in the day when you had privacy? I think people are going to know every thought that everybody has. There's nothing hiding. You're not going to be able to hide taxes. I think the way our lives are getting more and more interconnected with technology, we're going to come to a point in time where I don't think there's going to be anything to hide than anybody has. And that's going to be a weird time to be alive. I swear I think about things and my iPhone tells me. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's like, oh, why don't you order this?

I'm like, how did you even? I swear I didn't say it out loud. I just thought of it. and it comes up there. I was Googling something and then the thing that I Googled started showing up in my Instagram feed. Very specific. It's a very specific thing.

I'll tell you what it is. It's a 1968 Bullitt Mustang. Tell me how specific that is. That's really fucking specific. That never showed up in my Instagram feed before. But I was Googling the scene from the movie Bullet. You ever heard of the movie? Yeah.

It's Steve McQueen movie. It's filmed in San Francisco. It's the greatest car chase scene ever. And Steve McQueen has this 1968 Highland Green Mustang. And they're going through this. See if you can find it. It's fucking wild. It's a wild scene.

And this is 1968. Cars drove like shit. So I Google this. I watch this chase scene. And I'm looking at builds that people have made where they've made replicas of that car, including this company called Revology that makes this sick Mustang.

And they make a new 1968 Mustang. Instead of it being a 1968 Mustang, it's like a 2023 1968 Mustang, but with modern technology in it. So this is Steve McQueen and this dude getting this wild chase scene in San Francisco. And it goes on for a while. This is when movies didn't have music playing when shit was happening.

Look at this. It's just the sounds of the car, Steve McQueen's face. And now they'd be fucking this up with... But back then they knew how to make a fucking movie. But look at that car. Look at that car. That's a 1968 Mustang. That's a 68 charger

so anyway this starts showing up in my fucking instagram feed now that's really specific that's how dope is that car that's a dope car that's a fucking dope car i saw the scene's incredible it goes on forever do you think they cleared traffic for this uh For sure. They just clipped that car. You saw that. I know, but my point was there's a movie I've seen recently, same time period. I think it's a Jack Nicholson chase scene, if this makes sense, in maybe New York or Chicago. I read they didn't clear traffic. They just filmed it.

I don't think it's as dangerous as this one probably, but they just filmed it. For something like this, this is high speeds. You can't have people walking their baby stroller across the street when Steve McQueen kills them. Or you just pay an intern and say, hey, don't cross the street right now. No, that's not going to work. That car is 100% a part of the movie. So is that car.

Watch how this car reacts. These are all like stuntmen. These are all stuntmen. Now it would be. I would assume it would be now. You see how slow that Volkswagen's going? That dude would not

be going that slow. Look at this. Hubcap lost. Look at this shit. This is a wild fucking movie, son. This goes on forever. This is what they used

to do in movies. If you watch like old, like a lot of Steve McQueen's movies, Le Mans, same thing. The whole beginning of the movie, no one even talks forever.

I'm really good at falling asleep during movies. You don't give a fuck about anything but training. I love it. I love it. I'm like, anytime I lay down for too long, it's like it's a risk. Right, you just pass out. Yeah, yeah. I can't.

Movies, I don't know. It has to be like, I don't know, kids movies I usually watch. You like kids movies? I'm like, I'll do good with like animation things. Like Frozen? Yeah, I'll do good with like animation things. Like Frozen? Yeah, I'd be cool with watching that. I could probably stay up for that. But like any real movies, I just don't have the, I don't know, I don't have the intentions

man. Well, it's also like the drama that people go through in some real movies. Like think about the actual real drama you go through for your profession. Yeah, exactly. Their things are so mundane, you know? Yeah, I feel like I like to try to get away from that. I don't know. I am a huge fight fan, too, so I spend a lot of time watching fights.

Do you? Yeah, every weekend. Last weekend, I was like, what do I do? There's no fight time. I just feel lost if I don't have a weekend of fights. Do you watch only MMA or do you watch other sports? Do you watch Muay Thai or anything else? More MMA than anything else.

I don't know. Even jujitsu, I feel like I've never really gotten deep into watching. Really? Yeah. Interesting. It's more just MMA specifically. But I think MMA as a sport is completely different than, say, no-gi jujitsu versus gi-Jitsu versus kickboxing versus wrestling. It's like those are all – even I feel like people look at MMA Jiu-Jitsu versus no Gi Jiu-Jitsu.

They're like, oh, it's the same when it's completely two different worlds. Well, as soon as striking is involved and also the gloves prevent a lot of stuff. It's very interesting the difference. If I – obviously never fought MMA, but I've grappled with MMA gloves on. Just trying to get chokes when someone's not punching you. You can't get things under chins. It's so much harder. Well, it's just how you have to work for things, too.

I think when I go into jujitsu competitions, I get stuck in a girl's clothes guard, and I'm like, how the fuck do I open a clothes guard? Like, oh, I punch you in the face. That's how I open your clothes guard. I can't do that right now so it's like i haven't drilled that shit in years where it's like these girls are doing that every single day yeah the uh the strategy of punching in the face can't be ignored that's it's a good way to get out of someone's clothes guard yeah it's like well it's just easy effort exactly it opens's close guard. Yeah. It's like, well, it's just easy. A lot less effort. Exactly. It opens up so many opportunities, even submissions.

It's like, I feel like for the Rose grappling match, it was short notice for both of us. I think the whole card was put together on 11 days total. Oh, wow. So I just had like a short camp, but me just doing straight jujitsu for that short camp, I was like, it's so much harder to get submissions when you can't punch them in the face. When you can't just, like, get them to, like, try to push you off or create the space when you can't do the damage. That's a really good argument for learning it the way you're learning it then from the beginning. Because that's a really good argument for learning MMA jiu-jitsu.

It's a completely different sport. I think, like, I don't know. I think no Gi and MMA jiu-jitsu, they're just like getting farther and farther away from each other as the years go. I think that nogi is taking its own path and MMA is a completely different world where it's like even my choking style I feel like doesn't translate as well to nogi as it works for MMA. That's interesting.

for MMA. That's interesting. But it's like the level that exists now, both in jiu-jitsu and in MMA, is so different than at any other time. I'm looking at these guys that are just now entering into the UFC, and they look like world champions like they move like world champions it's so it's such an interesting thing to see and for you to be a part of it and to love it so much it's got to be one of the wildest experiences a person could go through oh it's crazy like at my gym right now we have a kid who just started training with us he's 11 and 1 and 20 years old and I'm like like where did you get the time to get those fights? That's amazing. Like my niece, she's three and just started to train jujitsu. I'm like, I can only imagine like people starting MMA at this age now where it's like, you've never really seen that before. And if you keep going at the pace you're going, I think you could hit like really crazy levels. I really believe that. I really believe that you're one of the most exceptional contenders

that are coming up right now. It's really exciting to see. I think I built a really good foundation over the last couple years. Like I said, I learned a lot. I got into the UFC extremely young, so I feel like it was a lot of stepping stones. But now I am in the prime of my life, and I have the right combination with prime of my life and I am, I have the right combination with goat shit and Dean Thomas. And I feel like I don't, I'm just in a good spot mentally and physically.

And I feel like I'm ready for these opportunities that are coming my way. That sounds like you prepared that one. Did you prepare that one? No, I didn't. Not at all. That's awesome. That was perfect. Print, cut, make a reel, put that shit on Instagram. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm excited. Print. Cut. Make it real. Put that shit on Instagram.

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm excited. I'm excited for you. When you're watching some of these upcoming cards, what fights are interesting to you that are coming up right now? The upcoming cards? Oh, on the Amanda Nunes card, the Benil Darush and Charles Oliveira. That fight. I'm like, I've been waiting for that forever.

It got canceled. Now are you scheduled? That's a good one. That is going to be a matchup. Benil Darush's fight with Jakar Close was one of the craziest fucking fights I've ever seen in my life. It was so nuts. It was so back and forth. Benil was almost

out. We thought he was hurt bad. He finds a way to win. His grappling is nasty. He's got one of those types of grappling styles that's just ideal for MMA. He's really blended it in such a perfect way. It's going to be interesting to see, because Oliveira is very, very good off his back. And it's like, Darush technically doesn't need to take this fight. He could probably get a title opportunity, I'm assuming, for this, you know? It's like, I feel like he takes opportunity.

Like, he's just a gangster, you know? Yeah, he is just a gangster you know he's down to take it he is just a gangster um you know who i was thinking about earlier i forgot to mention nasty off their back paul craig yeah he's something different something different that dude's triangle was elite okay holy shit uh him and jamal hill i'll never forget that his arm just like flopping around there. There's nothing worse than that. It was horrible. Luckily, Jamal's arm was fine. Believe it or not, it was just dislocated.

I thought it was broken. It looks so terrible. I've seen a gang of arms get broken in my day. And that one was one of the most awkward ones. Misha, when Rhonda broke Misha's arm. Oh, yeah. That was a good one, too. That was a good one.

ones. Misha, when Ronda broke Misha's arm. Oh yeah, that was a good one too. I'm like, it's so funny because in a fight, I don't have a problem like doing things like that, but then watching it, I'm like, oh, that's gross. I think the scariest ones for me are the leg breaks. When Anderson broke his leg against Weidman, when Weidman broke his leg against Uriah Hall, like those are the scariest ones. Those freak me out. For Weidman to be a part of both of those. I'm like, crazy. What are the odds? That's absolutely insane. There was one that happened a few years back, Corey Hill, rest in peace. And then there was Anderson. And then after Anderson, who else? Chris Weidman. Connor. No one else?

Is that it? I think that's it. That's it. And one of the worst ones is Tyrone Spong. You ever seen that one? Oh, my gosh. That was disgusting. It's a hard one. It's something different in kickboxing, too.

I feel like the kicks are just thrown with more intention. Oh, my God. The way he stepped back on that is just something. And that was essentially the end of his kickboxing career. I mean, he's boxing now. That's a dangerous man. Oh, yeah. He's a dangerous dude.

He's a big dude. Yeah, that one fight where he got dropped early in the round, and the dude's swarming on him, and he measures him, measures him, measures him, blam! Whew! See where you can find that. Tyrone Spong crazy crazy first round knockout. Because it's nuts.

This dude comes after him, big tall dude, hits him with a big shot and drops him. And then the way he responds and the way he cracked that dude, just how staying calm under fire, looking for his shot, extending his left hand, then drops it right on him. Just like a sniper. Some people, it's like, I don't know. Here it is. Just the way some people

Michael Doot. Yeah, some people's minds are just I feel like they can just see shit. It's, I don't know, they see something different. Look at that.

Boom. Perfect one, two. Drops him. I mean, on the chin. Perfect one, two.

He gets up. Okay. Stays calm. This dude's just swinging now. Now he's just wild and reckless measures bam whoo and that's the fight this dude gets up and he's like what the fuck fuck this it took him a second he's like this is not I'm not good it's crazy the way people's bodies react to like being

knocked out sometimes it's like I think it was Edson and Shane Burgos yeah Shane Burgos I'm like it took him like five seconds

before he really felt it yeah that was one of the weirdest ones I've ever seen ever just something happened and he's backing up and as he's backing up

he's losing consciousness it was like he was good and, and then he wasn't good anymore. Shane Burgos is such a tough man. Oh, yeah, he's a dog. Oh, he's a dog. He's a dog, always. So here he gets cracked with a good shot here. Then he gets cracked with another good shot here.

Edson with those horrific leg kicks. I don't know where the... Is this coming up soon? Oh, they put the whole fight in there? So obviously Edson is catching him with a lot of stuff. And as tough as Shane is, he's probably been hurt on multiple occasions in these exchanges. Right there. That's it. So it was a 1- hurt on multiple occasions in these exchanges. Right there. That's it.

So it was a one-two. It was a one-two right there. Right there. One-two. Boom, boom. And then it just, the lights go out. Crazy. I've never seen something like that.

That was weird. Yeah. But it was a hard punch. And multiple punches before that edson barbosa is a guy who doesn't get enough credit that guy has the fastest switch kick i've ever seen in my life his switch kick is bananas his last knee against uh billy corn to you and then his knee against benil darush both of them were fucking vicious insane yeah i wonder how much of a struggle it is for him to get to 45

uh i was on the last card with him and it looked like it was a struggle he's so shredded he was uh like we were sitting there an hour before weigh-ins and everybody was just sitting in their chairs and he was laying on the floor on the back just looked like he was struggling but the next day he went out there and performed a hundred apparently. Like he got that knockout, got that fight of the night bonus. So I'm like, I don't know how people do that. I don't know how they do it either. I don't get how you can make such a huge cut and just feel good on fight night. Crazy.

It's crazy because it's the amount of damage that does to your body. It's not zero. So like how much damage are you doing 24 hours before a cage fight just for that advantage? And it's like how much of a size advantage is it? Maybe five, 10 pounds. It's like how much of an advantage does that give someone if they are technically better than you? I think the advantage, I think there is advantages. There has to be. Otherwise people wouldn't keep doing it. I think that it's also – you also feel like if you get someone who does a lot of it and then they get a hold of you, you're like, oh, my God, I'm too small for this weight class. If you're one of those guys – like Frankie Edgar is an animal.

Frankie Edgar weighed 155 and won the 155-pound world title. He beat BJ Penn to do it. Frankie Edgar was beating everybody and they were way bigger than him. He just did it with skill and heart. And also he was so durable because he didn't cut weight. It's one of the things like some of these guys that cut a lot of weight, there seems to be, it seems like the guys who cut the most weight have harder times after a while taking shots. It seems to have an effect. It's hard to tell whether it's just the overall cumulative effect of their career or if it's the weight cut. But there was a lot of questions about Pejeta.

A lot of people brought that up, like whether or not the weight cut makes him more susceptible to getting knocked out. But it's not zero, right? It's not a zero effect. It has an effect. But it's also to be this bigger person and to be able to especially in the early part of the fight if you can get a hold of someone oh my god that's crazy really that's crazy that's 25 pounds that's crazy that's so much weight. Oh yeah.

No, I don't know. Think about 25 pounds of water on this table. Exactly. He removed that from his body and then put it back in. What? Without an IV. No,

it's, it's absolutely insane to see. And after that, being able to perform. I think that's the thing is that so many guys are doing it. When you see a guy who's as big as Edson at 145 or as big as Billy at – I don't know what Billy cuts. But there's some guys in some weight classes that are just like,

how is Marvin Vittori 185 pounds? That guy's giant. He's huge. Oh, yeah. But he gets down to 185. All my fights besides my last one have been at 125 in the UFC, and then my last one was at 115. So just the difference

between the 25ers and the 15ers is extremely different I feel like so like that uh girl we watched earlier Maria Agpova she uh I remember I trained with her at ATT and she would come at a camp around like 150 155 and cut down to 125 where I was coming into camp at 130 and cutting down to 125. So, yeah, it's just, I don't know. I don't know how the girls do it, but I'm like, there is a huge difference between the 15ers and the 25ers, just size-wise. Nobody does it crazier than Patty.

Patty's out of his fucking mind, because he does it in front of everybody. I feel like he tries to, though. Oh, he does try to. I think it's part of his persona mind. Because he does it in front of everybody. I feel like he tries to, though. Oh, he does try to. Yeah. I think it's part of his persona now, but it's also fun. The dude gets fat in front of the world and then gets shredded again. He disappears and then gets shredded again.

And then he gets fat again. Yeah, even that I don't get. I'm like, by the amount I train, I don't get. Look at the difference between them. That's so crazy. Look at the difference between the lower left-hand corner and the upper middle. When he's down to fight, he's a fucking character. That kid's a star.

You know, if he gets matched correctly, and that's the thing. Like if it was any other sport, you'd get matched. If it was boxing, you'd have a manager. That manager would go, okay, Patty, you got a lot of fans, but we got to set you up with the right opponents. We got to make sure that we test you in all these areas and build up all the holes in your game. And, you know, like boxers like to get to the title undefeated. They like to get to that title fight, 16 and 0, the challenger. That's what everybody loves in boxing. I feel like it's getting more and more like that in MMA too. I have more respect for fighters who

is like, you can see that they've taken tough matchups versus the fighters who is like, they fought nobody, but they have an undefeated record. What do you think about a fighter that gets an opportunity to take a fight they know they probably shouldn't take? And they take it early in their career against someone who's far more experienced and it can be very dangerous. But sometimes an opportunity presents itself and they say, hey, do you want to fight in the UFC?

We've got to fight against this guy, top whatever contender. And people have done that before. First fight in the UFC, you're fighting a contender, which is really wild. But it happens all the time. I've never taken opportunities that big, like fighting contenders in the UFC, but I feel like it is important to take every opportunity that comes your way because it's, like, it's more eyes on you. You have an opportunity to show what your abilities are, too,

even if you are, like, the B side of the matchup necessarily. But every opportunity I've taken, win or loss, I feel like it's helped lead me to the point that I'm at today, and it's also built the foundation that, like, you need losses, you need to learn, and you need that to fall back on. Even if you know, like, you're seriously overmatched, take it anyway? I don't know. For me, it's like I've never said no to a fight.

I think that's a tough situation. I've definitely went into fights where I know I was seriously undermatched. When I fought on the Tough House, like I said, I was 3-2. I was 22 years old, and I fought Barb Honchak, who was 10-2, the Invicta champ. She was pinned to win it, and that was my first fight in the house. I ended up losing second round TKO, but I had my moments in the fight. I almost finished an arm bar at one point.

And it's like I still had that opportunity. Obviously got my face in front of Dana. Got to be on the tough house. Like it was still an opportunity that opened doors for me in the long run. You also escaped that straight arm lock. When she had your arm extended. Oh, yeah. And you got out. I was like oh yeah and you got out i was like

super impressed that you got out of that i was like jesus christ i hated the angle when i was looking i was like jesus it was one of those there was a moment where she was yanking on it or i was like yikes literally uh i thought during that moment because everybody knew me as like the jiu-jitsu girl in the house so i'm like oh i cannot let her sub me. Like, I'm not going to let her get this shit. How close was it? It was definitely hurting, but it's like, I feel like it, that, that little bit of frustration gave me that little bit of like push that little drive. That's funny. Well, you got out of it, but that, that was a very tough matchup for you. Yeah. That's, that's the thing about, you know, the, the progression of, uh, of MMA that you, you get these tough matchup for you, yeah. That's the thing about the progression of MMA.

You get these tough matchups. And it's fascinating for me as someone who gets to see fights over and over again, see fighters progress through their career. You get to see these people that have put these things together. And you see the learning growth and the curve. And you see where they're at now. And it's like ever since I was, even in my amateur fights, I had a lot of tough girls. But like all my pro fights, I've had one or two fights where the girls haven't made it

to the UFC at this point. So it's like I fought all UFC level competition. My last amateur fight was actually against Cheyenne Blissmas on Rise of Warrior, my little hometown show. So it's like another UFC girl fighting when I was an amateur. So it's like I've always had the highest level of competition. That's very fortunate. But also Miami's a hot spot for MMA, right?

Florida in general I feel like is a hot spot. It's just I don't get how people train in the cold. So I get why. The only thing you have to worry about is hurricanes. Exactly. And alligators. They're not that bad, though. They're everywhere.

They're everywhere, but they leave you alone. Yeah, until they don't. Until they don't. Can't you just be comfortable with having monsters walking around your yard? That's crazy. I remember when I went to the Tough House, it's like that's the first time I was really, I don't know, around a lot of girls from, they were all around the world. And they were asking me about alligators.

They're like, what do you do about them? I'm like, what do you mean what do we do about them? Like, they're just there. We just kind of ignore them. They're like, I feel like everybody expects them to be like chasing after you or something like that. They have this weird stigma around them. Well, every now and again they do get someone. Every now and again.

Every now and again, they do get someone. Every now and again. She's so comfortable with living around monsters that every now and again, eat a people. We have gators, sharks, snakes. Everything's trying to kill you in Florida. But if you don't go in the water, you don't have to worry about the sharks. Well, the snakes. We had a real problem in the Everglades. That's nuts. Yeah. The Everglades. Yeah. That's nuts.

Yeah. The Everglades, there's like 14-foot pythons. They're fucking huge. They just find them. They don't even have to look that hard. There's one. I saw a video of one eating an alligator. Yeah.

I'm like, that's crazy. Yeah, we played it a bunch of times. There's a bunch of dead ones they found with alligators poking out of the side of their body. Yeah, they've run out of things to eat. It's just insane, though, like to be able to swallow something literally bigger than you. Yeah, literally bigger than you. Well, they've eaten everything. There is an estimation that 99% of all the deers, rabbits, raccoon, everything in the Everglades is gone.

Oh, wow. 99% I didn't know that. Yeah, all from the snakes. Oh, that's crazy. There's like nothing left. It's just monster soup. It's just monsters?

It's just snakes and alligators. That's all that's left. And some poor fuck, imagine if you're some dipshit who doesn't know what you're doing, you want to go hiking in there. There's a half a million pythons. A half a million. Oh, wow. In Florida. I'm like,. Oh, wow. In Florida.

I'm like, you're opening my eyes to this. Yeah. This is a half a million pythons estimated in Florida. I've always seen things on the news and stuff about that. Obviously, you see the Florida man things, like catches a python. I'm like, I didn't know there's that many, though. I think you guys are way too comfortable. You're way too comfortable.

I don't think you realize what's like right. There's this there's a wooded area that you go into. It's filled with monsters and those monsters have eaten every mammal. And it's like with me, I think like crocodiles, alligators are so cool. It's like they've eaten every animal and they've been around for thousands of years. Millions. Millions of years. Yeah.

So it's like, they survive everything and can kill anything. They're cool as fuck. They are cool. Yeah, I think alligators and crocodiles are really cool to me. I'm really fascinated by them. Crocodiles are very different though. Crocodiles are like a wolf whereas alligators are more like a dog.

In Florida, though, the crocodiles aren't as aggressive usually. Well, are they as big? We don't have a lot of crocodiles. Is this a crocodile with a person inside of it? It's a snake. A python with a five-foot alligator inside its stomach. Oh, Jesus.

Ate it whole. Whoa. Oh, my God. Look at that. That's insane. That is fucking insane! 18 foot, maybe 20 foot python. 20 foot python with a giant ass alligator inside of it. And where was this? Where'd they find this one?

Florida. This was in Florida? That's where I've ever go to the National Park. Wait a minute. I thought the biggest Python they ever found in Florida was like, I thought it was less than 20 feet. Well, this is 18. This is roughly 18. Oh, okay. A five-foot alligator inside of it. You know how insane that is? So it literally is monster soup.

It's monster soup. There's nothing left. There's no raccoons. They're all fucked. Imagine being a raccoon trying to get laid. You're out there. Anybody? There's no one there.

No one lives there anymore. There's no deer. Good luck finding a deer. They all got jacked by monsters. It's all the monsters and all the people, too. There's too many buildings now, I feel like, Miami. I feel like there's no, I don't know, there's no wildlife. Maybe you should encourage people to go hiking.

In Miami? You should go to the Everglades. Yeah, yeah. Go to the Everglades. Go for a hike. Solve both the problems. That would be a real reality show. Here's a real reality show.

Take some clout-seeking dipshit and let them camp out for the longest in the Everglades. No, don't do this. Someone's going to take this idea and someone's going to die. Yeah, you got to put the disclaimer on it. One of my favorite stories about Florida was this guy was involved in a car chase with the cops. And he parks on a bridge, jumps out of the car, lands on a gator and gets killed in front of the cops. That's one of those ones where I'm like, can we get that fact checked? How does that happen?

Just an asshole and karma come get you. Karma came and got him. Land on an alligator. It's like a movie. There's this, sometimes scenes happen in real life that seem like a movie. Florida man runs from police directly into an alligator's mouth. When Brian Zuniga fled a traffic stop in, well, you fucking pop-ups. When Brian Zuniga fled a traffic stop in Tampa yesterday, he had the right idea.

Sprint away from the cops, jump a fence, hide behind a water treatment plant. But Zuniga wasn't counting on a justice-loving reptile. He's back in custody this morning with nasty scars on his face. Oh, this is a different one. Yeah, this is a different one. This is another one. Many of these dipshits have fucking landed on alligators.

Yeah, one guy died. This dude jumped off a bridge, though. Got his arm bitten off. Yeah, that's Gator Man. That guy wandered around for like days with one arm. He's like, man, I didn't know where everybody was. Oh, this one just happened recently.

It's a wild ass place. Who would have thought that Florida would be like the battleground for freedom in America? Like, who ever thought that Florida would be the place where all the people like, we need freedom. Florida was the spot. Yeah. No, especially I feel like during like COVID and stuff like that. It's like, I think that's what's drawn all the people to us. during like COVID and stuff like that.

It's like, I think that's what's drawn all the people to us. It was like since COVID, everybody, like you said, like with the freedom and everybody's just kind of rushed their way there. It's so funny that he got so much, DeSantis got so much criticism from that. But at the end of the day, he was right. And no one wants to admit it. He said, protect your elderly, treat your elderly, everybody else, you should be able to go back to life.

And he was right. And everybody was like, you're killing everyone. He was right. Yeah, I think we never really, like, gyms might have shut down for like a week, but we were still open, you know? Thank God. But like, there is nothing that really like shut down for a long time in Florida. Jiu-Jitsu gyms in LA got hit hard. Oh, yeah.

They got hit hard. I heard a lot about new york how terrible it was horrible yeah the donahue death squad they all went to puerto rico so they could train imagine that you literally going to an island in the middle of the fucking ocean so you could train yeah it's so crazy yeah it was i don't like i worked with dean a lot during that time so it's like we would constantly just wherever we can find mat space but we don't even need mats i'm like dean would drill on carpet with me if we got it. So I'm like wherever it was, we made it work and we made it happen during that time. But it's like,

there was a lot of opportunities and there wasn't a lot of places closing either. Well, the places in LA, they, you know, people had to meet privately in different spots. They had to try to keep their game going and just hope someone wasn't sick. And everybody had so much anxiety. But I didn't hear of anybody really getting fucked up by it in the jiu-jitsu community. And then it's like I fought in Abu Dhabi during that time. So it's like flying over there. It's like you have to COVID test, I think, 10 times before you touch the island.

It's just crazy all the things that we had to go through during that time period. It feels like it was a different world then. I know. And it's amazing that the UFC pulled it off. It was brilliant. Everybody was telling them, what are you doing? You're going to have fights on during a pandemic. You're going to kill people.

You're risking people's lives. And they're like, look, we're going to do it. No crowd. We're going to test everybody. Not good enough. People still didn't want it. Stay home. We're going to do it with no crowd. We're going to test everybody. No, not good enough. People still didn't want it. Stay home as if somehow or another a respiratory virus is going to dissipate because everybody stayed home.

Like, stop. You're talking nonsense. It doesn't work that way. So they did it, and it all took off. And then NBA started doing it with no audience. And then they started creeping audiences back in and like the apex center and i remember the first time we did it in an audience again it was uh i think it was jacksonville it was crazy because like florida was one of the only places where you could do it and it was a full

packed arena and i was like this is the super spreader event of all time because it's the middle of everything and everything was fine yeah i feel like the audiences have come back stronger since covid too it's just like it used to be like first couple fights there'd be nobody in the audience during the prelims and now it's like the first two fights there's already fans there everybody's just like ready to get in their seats i love that when i get there and we're there for like 4 p.m fights and it's already packed, that's exciting. But I get it. Six hours is a lot of fights.

Oh, yeah. No. It's definitely a lot of fights. But as the fighter, it's nice to have that crowd there. It's nice to have that energy there. And probably me being Canadian, fighting in Edmonton was probably like my one of my most memorable fights just because of that the energy in the crowd just because of how many people were screaming and it's like i'm not walking out in liverpool and getting booed you know right did that feel like it had

added pressure on you it didn't add pressure it just makes me uh i i love it more than anything else it's like the fights at the apex almost like don't have the same feel to me they don't have the same like vibe around them like even like the what even the wins i'm like it's just like you're celebrating by yourself to have the crowd there and just that energy in the room it just makes everything different when you walk in the cage i totally get it but as a fan watching the apex is really special there's something about being able to watch fights with no crowd, and the fights are being broadcast on television. I mean, I always, I was thinking at every one of them,

like, wow, I'm so lucky that I can be here and do this. Because just to be in this moment, there's only 100 people here. And this is in the middle of these crazy, weird times. But I'm getting to experience Tony Ferguson versus Justin Gaethje, this wild, crazy fight with no audience and it was a fucking war a crazy fight with no audience it's so weird it feels like it's almost like too chill of a scenario when you're in there it's like okay I'm in a fist fight but it's just

like because it's so quiet it's just so relaxed it's weird it is it's it's very different to experience as a fan i couldn't imagine the difference in like when you do something and there's no cheering you know maybe you hear your coaches and that's it but you also can hear like specific instruction very clearly oh and you can hear her coaches very specifically then too so it's like that definitely plays into it and it's like or i always like whenever just watching as a fan like you can hear the shit talk between the fighters you know on the mic so like it just definitely adds a different aspect well um that's why mark henry's got such a fascinating way of doing it where he

comes up with nicknames for every move and they're different for every camp yeah which is crazy yeah i feel like trying to remember that would be hard. Rashad said he was blown away. He's like, this guy writes out all these different names. Like, this would be the name of your friend. This would be the name of your daughter. This is the street you grew up on. Like, what?

Yeah, I'm not remembering all that. With Dean, I feel like he relies on my decision-making ability a lot. And he relies on the fact that we're prepared, that we spend 10 weeks, 12 weeks, whatever, preparing for this moment. So it's like I should be ready for every opportunity or every obstacle she throws at me. So you will hear him in the corner, but not often. I feel like he only talks when he feels necessary. So it's like he trusts me to make my own decisions majority of the fight that's awesome i feel like also that's what's helped me build great decision making and i feel like at a championship level decision making is what makes one of the biggest

differences that's a very good point that's interesting that's the thing about it like as the old for the overall health of the pupil yeah because as you're going through the challenges they're going to get more difficult and you're going to have to kind of sort it out on your own and then whatever mistakes are made you correct in the gym and it's like for me at the end of the day it's like i'm walking in the cage by myself you know i need to be ready for that moment i need to be ready to answer everything and like i think it was my second or third ufc fight i literally i had just one girl in my corner and she was an amateur fighter, just because it's like, I just needed someone to warm me up. It's like, we have those 12 weeks of preparation and I'm ready no matter what walking in there. So it doesn't really like matter like

who's in the corner. What does a camp look like for you? Is it laid out in advance and does it include, do you have strength and conditioning sessions that you do separate to your MMA training? I actually don't do strength and conditioning at all. You just do MMA? Yeah, I just do MMA. Is that unusual? I think it is. I think a lot of people think I'm weird because I don't do it. I think that it's more beneficial. Like you only have so many hours in the day and there's so many sports. There's jujitsu, wrestling, striking. It's like there's so much to learn. So it's like I can only invest so much time into each of them. So I choose to invest my time into technical abilities.

And for my cardio more, I get it in rounds. So it's like I do jujitsu rounds or MMA rounds. I do MMA rounds three times a week. So it's like I'm constantly getting that cardio work, getting that push. And I feel like there's nothing that can really match that MMA pace, that MMA cardio. So it's like you can do striking for six months, then come to jujitsu and have shitty jujitsu cardio. So it's like I think you have to be doing MMA to get MMA cardio. I don't think running or anything like that necessarily supplements it. Do you guys do things like switch out opponents and live drills

and things like that to ramp up your heart rate and simulate moments inside fights? Things like that or we say it depends on who my opponent is in the cage. If I'm going with the boys or with the girls, if I'm going with the boys, it's like they can push the pace for me no matter what. Just them. They're stronger, faster typically. And so and we have a good group of 125 pound boys who can really push the pace for me technically. And then with the girls, we usually set like goals for me.

So it would be like just try to score as many submissions as you can this round or we're trying to score five takedowns a round. So just make sure you push the pace to make sure that I want to be ready to shoot 10 takedowns a round every fight that I go into just so I'm confident in that. And it's not like a necessity of me, like, I need to get it to the ground this time. I can shoot 10 more times. We'll just come up with strikes. We'll figure out when the opportunity is right.

I like that strategy because you're essentially doing strength and conditioning through skill drills exactly yeah all my uh strength and conditioning is just getting rounds and doing sparring well i mean there's nothing that makes you stronger than wrestling right and if you if you're doing that kind of thing like trying to get as many takedowns as possible in 20 i mean that's that is a form of strength and conditioning for sure. Absolutely. It's a different type of – we usually once a week we'll do big gloves, so boxing gloves and takedowns, and we just do King of the Hill. And there's two 10-minute rounds, and those two 10-minute rounds will kill you every time

just trying to take someone down because we have big gloves on, we're hitting hard and then getting takedowns. And it's like those rounds, I don't feel like there's anything that pushes my cardio like that. That's interesting. How much harder is it to take someone down with big gloves? It definitely adds a different element, you know, especially like I said, these rounds, we specifically know we're going for the takedown. So it's hard, hard rounds. Yeah. specifically like know we're going for the takedown so it's hard hard rounds yeah is like when you're talking big you're talking like 16 18 how big are the gloves uh yeah like 14 16 okay yeah just

boxing gloves yeah versus using like mma sparring gloves like six ounce or what are your thoughts on uh hard sparring versus technical sparring i think you need a little bit of both i think you definitely need to learn how to bring that dog out in the fight when you need to. So you need those hard sparring rounds. You need those rounds to make you confident in walking forward and confident in pushing the pace. But it's also technical sparring rounds.

You need 100 times more of those. You can do as many of those as you want because you're not taking the damage. But that's what's going to build your reaction time, what's going to make you think more. A lot of times if you get too much hard sparring, then you get a little bit like punch shy. You're not going to build the right reactions. So if you get more technical sparring, you're building more right reactions

and you're building just, I don't know, I feel like you need both. I think you're probably right. And I think most people would probably agree with you. But for longevity, the one concern is like how much hard sparring you do in training and how much that takes out of your longevity, how much that takes out of your overall career. Like Max Holloway is not sparring at all anymore, which I found really fascinating. And his reasoning is he'd take unnecessary damage in sparring, and I know how to fight, and I'll just do drills and work on my conditioning and do it through drills,

and he's been very successful doing it. Someone like him, it might be a little bit of a different circumstance where he just has that dog in him. You know, you don't need any— he doesn't need the hard sparring to bring that out of him at all or did like right like make him feel comfortable there like that's just max has that in him he's also had so many high level fights that like the timing and the it's all in his head he understands what happens he's been there with volkanovsky you know over and over again he's been been in there with Conor McGregor in the early days.

You know, he's a fucking animal. You know, Max Holloway's an animal. He's really good. Max is, yeah, I feel like he's like the people's champ. He's such a good guy, too. He's like the nicest guy ever. He's so friendly and fun, but, man, when he turns it on inside the cage, holy shit, he's got extra gears holy shit he's got extra gears that guy's got

extra gears like he's he's another one that's a fantastic example of dedication and hard work and the results because like and he'll tell you he's like i'm not the most athletic guy so there's nothing it's just he worked harder than everybody he's more intense than everybody and then when you saw him in his prime and he was a monster He just would put it on people and put a pace on people They just couldn't keep up with I feel like that's so much about what it is is just showing up it's just being there willing to do the work willing to be coachable and It's like you have to show up like I feel like so many people think it's just I don't know people you have to show up.

Like, I feel like so many people think it's just, I don't know, people fall in love with the stardom and the starlight of the sport, and they don't realize that it's just like, it's the showing up every day and grinding and getting the work in that's really going to produce results. Yeah, it's a long process. It's a long, long, long process.

But it's got to be exciting to be in the spot of the process that you're at, knowing how you were in the beginning, when you just started taking kickboxing classes to look at you now I mean oh yeah it's I feel like it's been a short process in the grand scheme of things um it's been 12 years since I started training and six years of that has been in the UFC which is really fun yeah yeah exactly so that's crazy yeah um like it's uh I feel like it's just gone by so fast really it's just it's it's crazy to work with people and like i don't work with people who it's like their first day and you're

trying to teach them like all right move your hip over here and they can't like figure it out yeah they just can't comprehend it and you're like was i ever like that do you remember what you were like when you first started did it come to to you easily? Did you? It definitely came to me more easily. I don't remember like me ever being like, I don't know. Super, super awkward. Yeah. Super terrible. But I know I was, I know it definitely came easy and I was good at jujitsu from the time that I started. Did you do any sports before that? I did nothing. Nothing. I did gymnastics when I was probably like five or six for a year. And my parents put me in soccer multiple times because they played soccer. My brother played soccer.

My dad coached soccer. So it was like they tried a couple of times and I quit a couple of times. And then it was just they were like, you need to get some type of hobby, some type of activity. And that's when I started volunteering with animals. Oh. Did they, was it totally out of left field when you became a fighter for them? Oh, yeah, completely out of left field.

They're like, what the hell, girl? Everybody expected me to be a vet. That was just the trajectory I was on. And I don't, like, literally my parents growing up would tell me that if somebody's trying to start problems, you just walk away, you know? Like don't start any like fights or anything like that there they are a complete pacifist on that side and I couldn't tell you the difference between like the WWE and the UFC when I started really like I had no

idea what Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was nothing I had no idea so it's like it was just I really don't know where I got the thought where I wanted to do it you just well was there a lot of high-level people that were around you at the time because you walked in Dean's gym yeah well it's I I guess before that like to walk into there I don't really know it was my motive but in the gym he had a couple of, I guess, the pro guys who were doing all right. Nobody too high level, but it was just, I don't know, I fell in love with the just the environment of it all. I just loved the the grind of it all. I just remember when I was in the cardio kickboxing

class with like a bunch of like soccer moms, pretty much. And after the first day, I didn't expect it to be that much of a workout for some reason so I was like beet red in the face and one of the moms she was like just make sure you keep coming back and like I just remember like always thinking about that because I don't know if it like I probably would have kept coming back but it definitely was like I didn't want to on the first day I was like like, this shit's hard. Do you think that lady saying that to you made you come back? I think it might have influenced something. Because I was like, all right, now I have to.

She's expecting me to be there, you know? Isn't that crazy? How just one weird moment, one weird interaction where someone could say something to you changed the course of your whole life. Oh, yeah. Even I feel like it's so weird that it's like something like that I walked into Dean's gym. Yeah. What are the odds?

The chances that that happened is like he's still my coach 12 years later. Like that's just like I feel like you can't walk into a better spot, really. You can't. You just got lucky. I mean, but is that what it is or is it destiny? I mean, it's a great story. If I wanted to tell a story about a an mma fighter who did nothing until she was 16 it takes cardio kickboxing and then some little old lady says you

keep coming back and she's like ah okay i said hi to the old lady now i gotta keep coming back she's gonna be mad at me i feel like everything i don't know everything in my career kind of did just like line up like that it was like whenever Ronda got into the UFC, I was just getting into my amateur career. And then whenever I stopped being able to make 115, they opened up the 125-pound division. And it was like, so you had to have at least three fights and a winning record to get into the tough house.

And I was 2-2, and I was searching for for a fight searching for a fight couldn't find anything then the week before the tough house tryouts i got a fight and i fought the saturday before then tried out for the tough house the next weekend wow so i'm like i feel like everything's just kind of lined up perfectly just i don't know do you ever wonder whether or not there's like a divine plan? I definitely think that I was made for this. Like, I feel like I was made for this spot, made for this sport. And I feel like there is a reason that everything lined up. What do you think that reason is? I don't know yet, I guess.

I definitely, I don't know. I think I'm capable of something that a lot of people aren't capable of and how I can, I guess, show this sport, how I can translate this sport. You're definitely a unique person and a very thoughtful person and a person that if someone talked to you and they did not know that you are a professional cage fighter of the highest level, they would never imagine it. He seems so like friendly and normal. And then if I show it, like there should be a show where people get to meet you and then guess what you do. They don't guess what you do.

They just talk to you. They can't ask you what you do. They just talk to you about life. They can't ask you questions about martial arts. They can't ask you questions you do they just talk to you about life they can't ask you questions about martial arts they can't ask you questions about anything for an occupation just so how do you you know how do you feel about climate change like whatever just talk to you about shit and what do you think she does zero people would say cage fighter zero i feel like it's almost like two completely different people like jillian and the savage i'm like when i'm the Savage. I'm like, when I'm in the cage, I'm like, it's a completely like, after is actually the Maria Agpova fight, I sit down on the floor and I throw up two

middle fingers. And post fight one of the UFC guys, he was like, so you throw up the two middle fingers, like, what was all that about? I was like, I did that. Like, I completely like blacked out didn't remember I did that at all. Wow. I'm like, it's that? Like I completely like blacked out, didn't remember I did that at all. Wow. I'm like, it's a completely different person there. I don't take any accountability for that. Do you have like a switch where that person comes in or is it only when the fight starts? I want to say it's whenever like my walkout song starts that I start.

Because there's definitely the pre-fight nerves. I feel like everybody has them. And I go through them all day in the locker room and then as soon as like I'm making the walk I don't have nerves anymore like I'm just ready to go ready to walk out there and it's like I don't know it like even in that fight I was sitting there and I'm choking that girl and I'm just looking at the ref like oh she's out trying to tell him calmly I'm like it's just something I don't know something weird something different that happens whenever that I'm in the cage do you feel like you get like a tunnel vision do you feel like or do you feel like legitimately like you're a different person uh it's probably more of just like a tunnel vision

after the fight I think I'm a different person sometimes I'm like I'm sitting there screaming and shit I'm like who the fuck is that but uh yeah it's really just a tunnel vision I remember my last fight just looking around the other arena and seeing it just like a full arena so many people and then as soon as he's like fighter you ready all the lights turn off in the arena and it's like it's just you and her then and it's like I don, are you ready? All the lights turn off in the arena. And it's like, it's just you and her then. And it's like, I don't know. It's just such a focused moment. It's such a surreal moment in there. What is it like hearing the cheers? I feel like you got to kind of block them out till after the fight.

Because even during the fight, it's like, if somebody's cheering you on, it's like, all right, now I feel like I got to do something. Or you feel like they're cheering the other person on. You guys hear boos, like if it's in the clinch and someone boos. Oh, yeah. Everybody's screaming the Ric Flair woo the whole time. Like the second you get a takedown. I'm like, I'm sitting on top of this girl for four seconds and you guys are already screaming.

Come on. Yeah, it's interesting. But that's the problem with casuals. They don't understand how hard it is to get there, what the consequences are. Maybe they don't even know you. They don't get the consequences. I feel like grappling also isn't like a casual favorite sport.

They want to see you stand and bang. So it's like me being a submission artist, I feel like I haven't really gotten a lot of that attention, I guess. Or they don't really, I don't have a lot of fans in that department. Yeah, but if they watch that meatball Molly finish, Jesus Christ. I mean, that is dramatic. When she comes to and she's kicking, you've seen it, obviously. When she wakes back up, that is always weird to me. When someone comes back, it's like where were

you where'd you go where'd your brain go i've had it once in a grappling competition where i didn't go completely out but like i tapped and the ref called it a couple seconds later and like i couldn't sit up all the way and i just kind of fell back but i was still there but i just remember like i instantly felt like i was scared I peed myself at first. I was like, I felt like I was sitting in like a cold puddle. And I woke up and I was like, no, I'm good. I'm like, I just went out a little bit, but I'm good. But I don't know.

It's such a weird scenario. I don't know, weird feeling. I went out on a fighter jet once. I blacked out. We went seven and a half Gs on this one thing, and it was with the Blue Angels. And you have to hold on to this. You're holding on to the whatever it is, the yoke. Is that what it is?

What do they call those things? The fighter pilot will hold on to this thing, and they have to do this thing called hooking, where they go like this. Hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot. Where you're literally pumping blood into your brain to try to stay consciousness, because the pressure of the G-force, you see black on both sides like an elevator door.

It's closing your consciousness. It's literally like a visual thing. Oh, yeah, as Tito Ortiz went out. Oh, my God. How many Gs did they hit him with? I'm not 100% sure. I just saw this

going around and it looked nuts. Yeah, they hit you with crazy Gs and then you black out and that's not good. That's not good.

That's not good. Also, what does that do to your neck when you're going all those Gs and your fucking neck is flopping around?

But I did it at one, but then the second, we did another thing, and I didn't hook quick enough, or I didn't realize it was as many Gs as it was. It was actually less Gs than we had already done, and it blacked out,

and then I woke up, and I threw up. Nine Gs. He was at nine Gs? Yeah, that's a lot. I did seven and a half. I got to seven and a half Gs. It's a crazy feeling.

It's real weird, but you have to, I mean, you can only stay, I don seven and a half. I got to seven and a half Gs. It's a crazy feeling. It's real weird. But you have to, I mean, you can only stay, I don't know how long you stay conscious for. But those guys, they don't fly with suits. They don't have like a G suit. There's a certain G suit that helps you absorb. But either way, that's the only way I've been out. I went out, I got choked out by a plane. I'm like, I've put more people out than I've been put out.

So I'm like, that's a good thing. That's the perfect ratio. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what you want. I don't think it's that bad for you, but I don't think it's good for you either. Like whenever I see radio DJs that want to get strangled, I'm like, I don't know if that's innocuous. Yeah, I don't know the drive behind that. Why you would want that.

Steve-O did it on one of his specials. He had Tim Kennedy choke him out. I watched it recently. I think Mike Bisping did it too with Steve-O. Oh God, everybody's choking Steve-O. Yeah, it was just last week. Did they both drop him? No, no. Tim Kennedy dropped him. He laid him down quite gently.

Wow, Tim Kennedy's a savage. Just let him drop. I think he asked to let him drop. I think we had this conversation, didn't we, Steve-O? These guys, so silly. You know, letting people choke you to sleep and then dropping you on your head. Okay. Steve-O is so nuts.

He's so reckless. That was my thought whenever there was the Nate Diaz altercation a couple months ago with the choke. Oh, yeah, we strangled that dude. I was like, it's not about the choke. It's about him dropping him. I'm like, him hitting his head on the concrete. That's what worries me. Yeah, he did hit his head.

He didn't hit his head bad, though. It wasn't like from a full knockout. Full knockouts are scary on concrete. Oh, my God, they're so scary. Because when people's heads bounce off the curb, people die like that all the time. It's like getting hit in the head by the world. That's what it's like. Your head cracks.

It's fucking terrible. So don't fight, kids. Stay home. Go to the gym. Go to the gym and fight like a woman, right? Do you say that? Fight like a woman? Isn't that like a t-shirt line?

Probably. I'm not sure. Probably. It should be maybe. Do you have any aspirations outside of MMA? Like at one point in time, do you think you'd like to do something else? I would like to try to like maybe branch into like commentary or something like that. I really do. I just want to be in the fight game commentary or something like that. I really do.

I just want to be in the fight game. I love fights. I love analyzing fights. So I would like to hopefully get better at that one day. Well, the UFC always uses fighters, which is great. I mean, it's the most insightful commentation you're ever going to get. That's not a word, right? Commentation?

Commentary. You're never going to get. It's from fighters. Yeah, and Laura Sanko is killing it for the girls, too. She's killing it. Yeah, she's doing great. I mean, obviously Invicta. There's a lot of chicks that are doing commentary.

And it's a great thing for the sport to have fighters like yourself that can – you can have an insight into – especially if there's a big fight in your weight class. Like maybe someone who you could eventually face and you've been looking at tape on them and you could maybe exploit some things and talk about it. Yeah, I love it when Felder does it or DC does it. I used to love Kenny Florian.

It's Michael Bisping. It's awesome. Dominick Cruz. It's the best gig for those guys, too, because you're still in it. You're still going to all the fights. You're analyzing stuff. You're still a part of the excitement of it all, which is truly the most exciting thing. I've been to a lot of stuff.

Been to a lot of sports. Been to a lot of music shows. Been to a lot of things. There's not much out there that's as exciting as a world title UFC fight. Not much. Not much. Oh, yeah. I just love to, like, I'm not sure if coaching is necessarily the right step for me.

And I would want to do something where I'm staying with a sport. Like commentary. Yeah, staying at commentary, some type of thing where it's just, I need to be around this kind of energy. Like you said, there's nothing that can compare to a world title fight. I think with someone as dedicated as yourself too, you'd be very frustrated if you had students that weren't as dedicated. Am I right? I feel like that's a common thing. Yeah. I think that it's hard to find somebody who is as dedicated as me a lot of times or people who, I don't know, I don't want to say wanted as bad,

but it's like, that is what it is. Yeah. people don't want to put in the time or the effort and I'm like this is literally your job or your dream why aren't you just trying everything you can to make it happen yeah it's funny it's it's but it's it's a discipline issue and it's a focus issue and some people they don't they don't trust in the process either they they feel like they got better for a little while and then they hit a sort of a lull and they lose faith it happens all the time you'll see guys going through bad stretches at the gym and then you'll see him for a while it's like what happened i don't know i got tired of jujitsu and like okay but you were like on a good path you just gotta be able to push Got to be able to get through bad spots.

That's why I'm like keep showing up is the biggest thing that I feel like. Keep showing up. You just got to keep on showing up. Keep on being there, even on the day, especially on the days when you don't want to be there. You got to be there. And I don't know. There's nowhere else I would rather be. And I've been just showing up for 12 years.

And I feel like it's worked out pretty well. It's worked out awesome. It's worked out awesome. And I've been just showing up for 12 years and I feel like it's worked out pretty well. It's worked out awesome. It's worked out awesome. And it's great advice. It really is because they're really, as long as you can stay focused and try to be positive and try to be happy, there's, there's this, there's a process going on with anything you're trying to get good at. And if you're, if you're really involved in something and you're really interested in it and you really focus on it, you're going to get better. You're going to, and then you're really involved in something and you're really interested in it and you really focus on it, you're going to get better. And then you're going to look back and go, wow, I'm glad I kept doing that thing. Imagine if I just quit.

I've always said, if I work hard, doors keep on opening. It's always how it's worked. Me putting in the hours, me putting in the time, and doors have just naturally opened. So I feel like that's just the key to it all. I think you're right. And I'm glad this door opened, and I'm glad we got a chance to do this. It's a lot of fun. Oh, yeah.

No, it was a pleasure. My pleasure. And what are you slated for next? Do you have a fight planned? June 24th against Tabitha Ritchie. That's right. We just talked about that earlier. So, yeah, three and a half weeks out now.

Three and a half weeks out. Wow. That's a very exciting, very exciting fight. June 24th. And that's the Apex? No, it'll be in Jacksonville. Oh, that's the Florida card. That's the Emmett Teporio card.

That's right. It's going to be my first. Let me see that whole card. It's going to be my first fight, first pro fight and first fight with the UFC in Florida. Oh, wow. So that being my home state pretty much it's gonna be awesome for me I'm so excited this is a fucking great guard this is Gregory Rodriguez Dennis Tuluhan Brendan Allen Bruno Silva Neil Magni Phil Rowe that's a great fight ooh And is this, go all the way up to the top.

Is this, this is ESPN? Is it ESPN Plus or just ESPN? Because they've been doing them on ABC too. Yeah. It's starting at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. It's a little earlier, so it's probably, I bet it's on normal. Well, we just did the ABC one. I wonder if they're going to do more ABC ones. Very interesting.

Anyway. Okay, there it is. It's on ABC. Oh, it is on ABC. Main card is ABC. Main card ABC. Yeah, see, there it is. That's an interesting deal.

Well, if I was a network, I'd want to get in on some of this action. That's an interesting deal. Well, if I was a network, I'd want to get in on some of this action. They used to be so scared of MMA, but now MMA has really been normalized. Yeah, yeah. A lot of, I feel like, I don't know, now it's like you see things like bare-knuckle MMA getting normalized more. That's kind of crazy, right? Yeah, I'm like, that's just crazy. MMA looks civilized now.

Yeah, I'm like, I don't know. I've been to a couple. I went to a bare-knuckle MMA and just a regular bare-knuckle fight, and both of them, I'm like, I don't know. I've been to a couple. I went to a bare-knuckle MMA and just a regular bare-knuckle fight. And both of them, I'm like, I'm sitting there cringing the whole time. I'm like, I don't get that stuff. It's a different level. Oh, it's 100%. Just hearing a bare fist hit somebody's face is a different sound.

And it's something scary. Well, the cuts, too. The cuts are crazy., the cuts, too. The cuts are crazy. Your poor hands, too. I'm like, everybody's hands after every single fight, broken knuckles, like huge fists swollen just because. I'm like, you can't not break your hand on somebody's head. Have you ever tried makiwara training? You ever tried that?

No. The karate guys used to do. They used to take, you know what a makiwara is? No. It's like a plank that has hard rope wrapped around it. And it's like bolted into the ground. And they would just practice reverse punches into this thing. It was like this hard thing that had like a little bit of give to it

until they developed these massive calluses all over their hands. So that's like more of a mechanical. Mackinac, that one looks like it has, like it gives. Yeah, so that's what a traditional one looks like. And these guys would punch them. Google like karate, mackinac knuckles. See that? And they would just practice hitting their knuckles

over and over again until they get preposterous looking. Just Google like for images because some dudes have like fucking insane knuckles from hitting those things that guy on the far left that guy the guy on the far left yeah that one that's what i'm talking about look at the size of his fucking knuckles do you think that actually helps yeah for, for sure. It builds up calluses. For sure. Definitely. My friend John used to do it. I've seen it.

He used to practice with bricks. He was a Taekwondo champion, and he would practice with his knuckles with bricks. And he had one knuckle that was essentially fused from calluses. It was this massive thing. The first two knuckles, like the index finger and the ring finger, were all just a calloused mass that he could smash people with. And you see people, like Muay Thai fighters do that a lot with their shins, like conditioning, but I've never seen that with their knuckles. Yeah, that was what they used to do in karate.

I think people still do it, too. Although, it's probably terrible for your arthritis and shit as you get older. Oh, yeah. You've got to sacrifice. Listen, thank you very much for coming here. I really appreciate it. Give everybody out your social media so they can follow you. My social media on Instagram and Twitter is savage underscore UFC.

Okay. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you being here, and good luck to you. Thank you so much. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Thank you.