The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #92 with Angela Hill

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

Joe is joined by UFC strawweight fighter Angela Hill.

Two. Good. Hello, Angela. Hi. What's going on? What's up? I was amazed that you'd get those headphones on. I was wondering.

Yeah. You got the best afro in the game, for sure. It was even close. It condenses. I mean, Casares got me beat, though. Alex Casares. Yeah. He does.

He gets crazy. Yeah. That's my goal. Those are my hair goals, is to get to get a nice big fluffy fro like his. When he fights, I always wonder. That seems like it would be harder to pull out of things. Don't you think? No.

It's actually kind of like those connecting joints where it's kind of like a big ball that goes in. But when you pull it out, it's like... It pulls out easier. It pulls out easier. pulls out easier yeah it's kind of like a like a joint like that so like uh you think you have a good grip but then the hair just like you know especially like if you put grease in your hair or hair conditioning or anything that makes it extra slippery right yeah i guess but like it's it's pretty it's just the fact that it can go small even though it doesn't look like it.

I feel like people think they have a better grip than they do. Like, I think my title fight in Invicta, the girl locked on, like, maybe three or four guillotines. And every time I was just like, you know, like, it just, like, popped out. And people kept going, it's deep, it's deep. But, like, I swear to God, my afro gets me out of tight situations. It's interesting with women fighting. There's options. And one of the options is clothes.

The way you wear your top can have a big impact if you're a grappler. Yeah. I always felt, well, I guess I don't feel like that anymore. Because I realize with all the costume malfunctions and stuff, it can be a big deal, especially if you're really packing. But I used to hate on girls who would fight in shirts. I'm like, come on, man. You're a fighter. Let your stomach out.

This is like a fight fight because things get tangled up and stuff, especially if the shirt isn't super tight. Even the girl that I'm fighting in Auckland, she has something weird where I think the other girl was pulling on her shirt. So in between the first and second round, they took her shirt off. So it's like, fuck it. This is kind of messing up your groove. Well, you get an option, right? It's not like you have to have your midriff exposed which is kind of interesting because it should be uniform shouldn't it i mean

women's mma is the only place where you can make a choice to be stickier right if you're a grappler in particular if you have like a full shirt on you you can definitely hold on to someone better yeah i think so um i don't know i feel like just the boob thing you know you can't have tits out like not in not as a fighter like it's okay for the ring card girls to like you know walk around the cleavage out but the fighters like i don't know they're trying to i guess make it more of an like okay these girls are athletes athletes, so don't stare at the cleavage while they're fighting. Yeah, it's a fine line, right? Yeah, yeah.

Because you're, you know, basically in your underwear almost. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Bathing suits. But I don't know. I always had this joke with, like, my teammates that I was going to get famous by being, like, the nip slipper. Like, I would use, like, certain would use certain Muay Thai clinch techniques to just pop the girl's boob out.

So I'd always get to fight the popular girls because they knew, oh, she's fighting Paige Van Zandt. We're going to see some Paige Van Zandt titties. And I would just raise my stock. I haven't done it, though. So you thought about it in training? I thought about it. Only in thought about it in training only in training only in training i tried on the guys in the gym lift their shirt up oops has anybody ever done

that on purpose in a fight that you know i think the one person that backfired with was i don't remember who she was fighting but leslie smith's uh boob popped out once did it really yeah in uh in one of her invicta fights, and she did not give a fuck. Oh, she's crazy. Yeah, she's crazy. Her ear was hanging off her head in that Jessica I fight. Oh, my God, yeah. You could see into her head.

Yeah, yeah. Her skull was in the fight. She was like, don't stop the fight. Don't stop the fight. I was like, this girl's gangster. She's insane. I love her. I love her.

She's crazy. And she's so nice and such a hippie outside of that. So it's like a really funny. What is she doing now? She's still trying to start some MMA union, right? Yeah, she's still going hard with the union. She's in Ballard now. But I think the union that she was working on was only for UFC fighters, I believe.

So I think she's still doing that i think she's still fighting for the ufc fighters even though she's not in the ufc does that what it's i i haven't looked into that like i haven't looked at like what do they what do they want what are they trying to accomplish what's not correct that they want to fix? Um, I think, um, just any, any grievances that the fighters have in general. So like healthcare, um, uh, salary,

uh, just things that, uh, everyone kind of agrees on is like not good enough yet in the UFC. I think those are the things that they're working towards. Um, how does healthcare work? Are you guys covered in training or are you only covered for fights?

As far as I know, if you book a fight and you get injured, I think they cover it. But I think it's also a gray area where they could not cover it and they're not legally obligated to fix you. But I think in the past they have uh i'm not sure i can't think of any uh any examples where they haven't like um you know taking care of the medical expenses of uh someone who got hurt but i know like a lot of times fighters don't claim it in time like after fights or it's like a little nagging injury that becomes a big deal further down the line. And it happened in a fight, but they waited too long? Yeah, yeah.

Either that or just, you know, just wear and tear from training in general. Like you can't, I can't go in for like a loose tooth or like a shoulder that I tore in practice if I wasn't getting ready for a fight. Well, that seems so crazy because you're obviously fighting in the UFC. You have a long-term contract. Yeah. You've been fighting in the UFC for years. If you're training, you're training to fight in the UFC.

Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of instances they still take care of the fighter, but I know if you're on the lower end, if you haven't really made a name for yourself yet, sometimes, you know, even if you just don't ask, like you don't get taken care of. It's not like it's not in your contract once you sign like, oh, I'm going to fight this many fights. But there's nothing in there that says if I get injured after signing this contract, I'm covered medically. get injured after signing this contract i'm covered medically so um so yeah i think that was that was the main reason i was like oh this is a good idea um just because like i know so many fighters who book fights just to get their injuries taken care of you know um or they

they'll fight injured and claim an old injury and. And that's their way of fixing whatever they broke during training. That sucks. It's horrible. It's such a fucking crazy way to make a living, period. Yeah. It's like you're deciding you're going to throw your bones at someone and try to break their arms and try to rip their legs apart. And then you're going to practice that all the time.

And then you're going to hope you don't get hurt in practice to the point where you can't actually just go do it inside the octagon. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And most of my injuries happen outside of camp because I'm either training stupid, training with someone who I shouldn't be training with, like someone too big or too inexperienced, or I'm just, like like fucking around like when i'm

fighting someone who's my size it's a lot less likely that i get injured right but when i'm throwing my bones like you said as somebody who's way bigger than it's easy i can hurt my hand punching them you know break my break my like or break my toe like kicking them you know that's for someone like you who fights at 115 pounds, it's even more difficult, right? Because the lack of people that are your size to train with, and you're also trained a lot with men, and it's crazy because at a professional level,

like, you're right there. You know, you just beat the shit out of Hannah Cyphers. It was a crazy fight. Thank you. It was huge. But that was a big fight for you yeah like you're you're in the heat right now yeah you know i mean you're right there yeah so for you you're you're you know you're at the top of the heap in this championship realm right and

to train with people that are bigger than you or to take chances like that like there's no other sport that would have that yeah you know yeah and it's like the lack of women as well you know because even if i'm training with like a band and weight uh if it's a woman like it's not as dangerous as training with like some of the bigger guys like the like guys and girls are kind of like different sizes like if i'm if i'm training with a guy who fights at 115 he's going to be like four foot tall you know so so it's uh it's like the weight distribution is different but like i don't know something about i guess training with women like the strength the uh the force that's coming at you versus the force you're giving to

them there i just feel like it's a lot safer to train with women. Oh, for sure. Yeah. For sure. But some people think that the opposite is that if you train with men, like say if you were training with a bunch of bantamweight men, yeah, they would be bigger than you. Yeah, they'd be stronger than you.

But you'd get used to that. And then you'd be used to men. And then when you fight with women, they would seem smaller and weaker. Yeah. And that was my old theory. So when I was at like my little gym in New York, I was only training with guys like the girls that would come in, they weren't at my level. And that's the same story that most girls in the UFC have,

you know, they were at the top of their heap. They were like the baddest girl in the gym, you know, beating up all the other girls and hang with the guys and that was me so it wasn't until i uh got on tough that i realized like everyone has the same exact background so everyone's tough because they were training with guys and you start to underestimate like how tough a girl's going to be in there. Like when you're fighting like tooth and nail, like, you know, to the death is basically like what you're doing in the cage until the ref pulls you off, you know, and then it's all hugs. But like when you're given like a hundred percent in the cage, it feels like just as strong as a guy, you know?

So it's good to like still have those checks and balances like, okay, like, yeah, maybe she's not as strong as the guys I train with, but she is going as hard as she can. Or she's defending it as hard as she can. Or, you know, she's taking my punches that I thought like, oh, if I drop this guy with this punch, then this girl is going to get dropped too. And it's not the case. Like she's just as tough or tougher. And it's not the case. She's just a tougher, tougher.

So it's like a weird thing where you have different stats stacked in some areas that guys don't. And then they have stats stacked in areas that women don't. So it's like if I was a bantamweight guy who only trained with light heavyweights. You're going to be faster. You're probably going to be more technical just because you have to train with people that big. So if you fuck up a technique, it's not going to work. But those guys are still going to be bigger and stronger and be able to muscle you, hold you down, that kind of thing. So I feel like that's like a similar difference. Particularly with striking, right?

Like with grappling, there's some really little guys that are impossible to tap. They just develop really crazy technique. But with striking, there's only so much you could do. You know, if you're a lightweight guy, you're not sparring with Francis Ngannou. If you are, he better be really, really, really nice. Exactly. Or you better be nice to him so he doesn't go like, all right, little motherfucker, boom. If you're not, he's not even going to notice it.

If you're not nice to him, it's not even going to work. Well, no, I've actually been told off for going hard with the heavyweights. Really? When I was just coming up, super green, and I was just like, I'm going to kill everyone in the gym. It's this little thing running at you, throwing overhands. And, like, when it landed, like, my coach would be like, hey, you got to relax. Because, like, you're landing overhands on this big guy. If he does the same to you, he's going to put you out.

And I was like, shit, I never thought about that. Because I just assumed, like. He wouldn't. Yeah, well, no, not that. I just assumed that, like, me landing a hard punch on a heavyweight isn't going to hurt as much as me landing a hard punch on someone closer to my size. For sure. Does that make sense? No, it won't.

Their neck is bigger. Yeah, everything's bigger. But it's still like if the guy is getting rocked, then that's bad. If he gets mad at you and farts back. Yeah, if he's getting his head turned and that's it. Your chin can only take so much. So, it's like, it's a lot less than, like, if I was throwing a body shot. You know, like, that's, it's a little easier to be mean there.

You've obviously gone through some improvements and some change. Like, what's changed with you over the last, like, four or five fights? Because you keep getting steadily better, but particularly the last two. I think you should be on a four-fight win streak. Oh, stop. You had that one decision. I forget how to pronounce her name. Zhao Nian Nian.

Yeah, is that how you say it? A cat. How do you say it? I don't know how to say it, but Zhao Nan Yan, I think. That's the lady you had in the triangle. Yeah, and she's on this card, too. Oh, okay. The Auckland card.

Yeah, I thought that was a bad decision. Thank you. But you had her locked up in the triangle. Sometimes when I do commentary, people get mad at me, like either the fighters or other people. But that was one where fans of her got mad at me because you you guys were right in front and you had her in a triangle and i was yelling pull the head i was yelling pull her head pull her head because you had it locked up it was locked up i'm like she's got it she's got it she's got it i'm like pull the head pull the head and

people like you fucking dick telling her to pull the head well i didn't hear or if i heard you i thought you were my corner i did hear someone say you were literally right there it's like i can't help yeah you know yeah it's like you had it you really had it it was so locked in but i felt like that was a shit decision it wasn't the worst decision i've ever seen we've seen some really bad ones lately but it was it was not good it wasn't so that would have put you on a four fight win streak right but the hannah cyphers one hannah cyphers is tough and she's like physically tough she's a like a strong girl yeah you know and when when you got her down and smashed with those elbows i was like something's going on like you're you're on another level do you feel it it? Yeah, I do. I do. I don't know.

I had a lot of, I don't know, I guess ups and downs in my career. It's literally up, down, up, down, win, loss, and win, loss. And I think after the Randa fight, I fought Randa Marcos about this time last year. Randa fight. I fought Randa Marcos about this time last year. And, and I was just so pissed at the way that went down because I was like, super nervous going into it. I felt like this, that was going to be a fight that kind of set me above the heap, because Randa is so tough. And she kind of has that same like up down that I do. So I'm like, okay, this is going to set me apart. I'm going to get a streak going. I'm this is going to be the fight that puts me in the rankings. And I do so I'm like okay this is gonna set me apart I'm gonna get a streak going I'm this is gonna be the fight that puts me in the rankings and I and I put a lot of weight on it and I had

like ESPN following me that week too so I was just super nervous and like the entire time during the fight like I wasn't in the fight like I was overthinking every position like there was a point where I had ran up against again the fight seems like it was 30 minutes long even though it was like two minutes you know but like the moment that i had her up against the cage i remember like just thinking oh if i hold her here she can't do anything to me and that's like the exact opposite of what you should be thinking in a fight you should be thinking i need to hurt her you know like I need to hurt her I need to do whatever whatever it takes to look like I'm

trying to finish the fight so I hesitated uh my corner was yelling elbow I didn't throw the elbow ran it through the elbow and then from there I was just like like two steps behind I felt like and so that fog was a really weird thing for me because I had never really thought about the mental side of fighting. Like I thought I was doing everything right. Like I would visualize and, you know, tell myself all positive things and, you know, do do everything that you you think you have to do before a fight. have to do before a fight um but that just kind of showed me like i'm not doing enough because i knew i had the skills to beat her but or at least the skills to make it look more competitive but i didn't show it do you think it was the added element the cameras following you around that just put this additional pressure yeah like it like the pressure was already there and then i found out about uh the espn thing and i feel like it was just me over it because I've always had this,

I guess this fear of losing too much, you know? And it started when I got into the UFC. I had like my tough fight, didn't go well, but I was one fight, you know, in my MMA career and I was in the UFC already. So I went on to win a fight but then I lost two in a row and got cut and from that moment on I'm like fuck like people are just gonna think of me as this person who loses all the time and then I went on a four fight one streak and Invicta

but then when I came back to the UFC I lost to Andrade and even though it was like probably the fight that people still talk about to this day, even though I lost. It's a crazy fight. Yeah, yeah. Like I always get complimented on that fight, but it was still another loss on my record. So like I've always had this kind of, I don't know, like this great cloud looming over like my confidence because of my record. Did it help that she went on to do such great things? It did. That it pumped great things? It did.

That it pumped you up? It did. It did. But when it came to fighting someone like Randa, who kind of had a similar story where she is talented, but she's fought a lot of tough people and lost to them or gotten weird decisions against people. I don't know. I just felt like this was my chance to prove that i'm not that like i'm i'm a better fighter than my record shows and so then when the espdn thing was thrown on and i just like it was just me bigging up a situation that wasn't that big right you know

like it was no different from you know my fight with Ashley Yoder. I felt more present in my Andrade fight. Like it was no bigger than those fights, but I just bigged it up in my head. And I felt like it was a result of me just pushing down all this anxiety that I have every time I fight and not really addressing it. So did you address it since then? Yeah, I did. What have you done differently? I just, we started reading like those, me and my husband, but he read them and then he started doing like the mental coach thing for me. present and being present each day and not like dwelling on the past not bringing the past into that present moment just trusting in your reactions and trusting in your uh your preparation

and so that's what i've been doing is like uh i've i have been doing like more like actual visualization exercises and just every time i'm in the gym, I just focus on being there at the gym. I'm not thinking about like, what's going to happen if this happens, what's going to happen if that happens. I just, I focus on the drill we're doing, on the exercises we're doing. I go as hard as possible. And I think just having that fight and having it go so badly forced me to go into the gym and just say fuck it you know and it's literally just like that fuck it mentality like that was the worst that could happen where you didn't show up you didn't fight to your the best of your abilities exactly when i hesitated i didn't show up i didn't i didn't stay in the moment i was thinking about what's

gonna happen next was what just happened, you know? What's going to happen if I lose? Like, I'm thinking that in the fight. Like, when I went to the gym the next, like, literally, like, the next Monday, I went to the gym, I'm like, fuck it, you know? And I just went hard. And, like, the next sparring session, I said, fuck it, and I went hard. And, like, those were, like, the best sparring sessions I had up to that date.

People were guys who usually wouldn't really say much after I sparred them. They're like, yo, you're on something today. You're just combinations and volume and this and that. Yeah, you're really getting after it. I'm like, okay, okay. I think I've kind of unlocked something so you know what's really powerful the way you're addressing it that you're so honest about what went wrong that's huge because sometimes people make excuses or they come up with some some you

know something that went that didn't go their way that should have gone their way and they don't address the real issue you're you're addressing the actual issue that was going on in your brain and you know that that's what it was yeah yeah thank you but it's like something i kind of had to learn from the get-go you know have you ever thought about going to like a sports psychologist i have i have uh like there i've tried a couple people in the past and i really just feel like everyone kind of says the same things yeah uh so i feel like if you're getting it from any resource that's good like i started using uh that mindfulness app okay which one i forget what it's called um headspace it's yeah headspace i was gonna say it's the ones with the cartoons

yeah um and that that really helped uh just like kind of calm my nerves and keep the anxiety uh from from being crippling sometimes what happens when you go to a coach is the fact that you physically go to someone and you sit down with the self this it's like a different level of commitment you sit down with this person this person formulates a strategy for how you address some of the issues that are going on your mind and then sometimes you can go to a hypnotist like Vinnie Shorman. Do you know Vinnie? No. Vinnie Shorman, he's fantastic.

And he's done a lot of, he actually hypnotized me. I asked him to hypnotize me because I want to know what it was like. It's very weird. It's very weird. It's like you're there, but you're not really there. It's like you're in a room next to him. He didn't touch me. Nothing.

No, no, no. Nothing weird. Like a dog. No, I just wanted to experience what it was like. And then, you know, like sometimes I procrastinate too much. Sometimes I'm lazy. Sometimes I feel like I get more work done than I do. I'm like, I want to know what that is.

You know, and he is really good at working with fighters, at addressing. He does a lot of stuff through FaceTime and shit, too. He lives in England. But he's worked with Joe Schilling. He's worked with a lot of different fighters. But he basically tries to get you to understand. First of all, you're already on a really good path because you understand what you did wrong. And then you understand to be more present.

Those two things are critical. That's everything. Understanding what went wrong. Letting it go. Those two things are critical. That's everything. Understanding what went wrong, letting it go. You're already doing that. And then concentrating on what you're really good at and just saying, fuck it, and letting it go. And expressing yourself. Being the you that you know that you could be when you're on.

It's like how to capture that and hold that thought and then bring it inside the octagon and be able to recreate those feelings when you're actually under pressure of competition. That sounds cool. Yeah. But like hypnotizing though? Like does he like take out the watch? No, he just talks to you. Okay. You close your eyes, you lay back, and he just sort of talks you through it.

It's very weird. So it's not like therapy. You definitely feel like a change in your brain. Yeah, you feel like you're in a different state. It's a weird state. It's very weird. That's strange. Like after it was over, I was like, huh, okay, that's real.

Yeah. Because I had seen like comedy hypnotism before. Have you ever seen a comedy hypnotism show? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Where they have a bunch of people come up and like, you're having sex with Rihanna and you think you are. Yeah, yeah. up and like you're having sex with uh you know rihanna and you think you are and yeah there's a lot of weird stuff that people do in these uh comedy hypnotism shows where i was like maybe i can't i don't think they could do that to me because i'm not gonna believe that i'm really

on a cruise ship right now and pirates are coming or whatever yeah yeah and then you go hide yeah yeah yeah they always i always see the ones where they make him turn into an animal or something. Or every time you say this word, something happens. And I'm going to wake up in three, two, one. Huh? What happened? It wasn't like that. Okay.

But it is like you're listening to his voice, but you're in a different state of consciousness. It's very strange. But you're able to put away the outside world for a brief amount of time. And he concentrates on flow, like getting you to a state of flow. That flow state when everything's going great. You know that feeling when you see things and you're hitting someone with something before you even know that there's an opening there.

And that was in those athlete books books too just that flow state thing yeah flow state is everything right it's like getting to the point where you're at that and then for you is a quick turnaround a better thing because you're more relaxed you just fought it's definitely a better thing because i feel familiar with the routine and familiar with like being in the cage and um one of the first things we started thinking about is what scares me so much um or what what like gives me that heart ping and one thing is like being in the cage and like seeing the canvas and like just how real it is because like when you see it on tv like the canvas is a different color you know like the

you can see like the texture i don't know yeah the texture the thread in the canvas and you can in i don't know there's a certain smell like the perspective is different like i look way bigger on tv like than i do in person and it's the same with my opponent like they look like this little thing trying to like fight me and it's but it's it's like this real thing in front of me. So it's scarier than when you're watching it, watching the replay of your fight. So it's just like that. I don't know.

Just that experience of being in there always scared me because it's, I don't know, it's just not familiar. It doesn't feel the same as going to spa or or like you know going to train or wrestle or whatever because it's like this big like thing that we build up we have a date we go in there's a lot of people watch it inside the octagon before your fight i like it in there i like to um i mean if it I think it helps But I think just being in there a lot Has helped more than that Just because

That is The area that I'm used to fighting in now Now that I've fought so much In a short period of time It feels super familiar Now I don't feel the need to warm up in there whereas before i'm like oh i gotta get to the i gotta get to the arena early i gotta fill the cage i gotta feel it on my feet feel how slippery it is you know that kind of thing um but yeah i

definitely like being in there being active i train all year round like i don't really take big breaks unless i like hurt something so in most of my fights, I come out injury-free. If I do have injuries from a fight camp, not from the actual fight. That's really fortunate. Yeah, no, I'm lucky. I want to take advantage of my health because I know it's not going to last forever. How old are you now? You don't know why?

20-something. 26? Oh, yeah. 20-something. 26? Yeah, yeah. That's the magic number. No, I'm 34 this year. Yeah. Well, you look great. Thank you.

When did you start training? I did my first Muay Thai class when I turned 24. Wow. Yeah. So I called it my- Maybe that's the thing, right? You don't have the wear and tear of a lot of people start when they're 10. And by the time they get to 24, they already got MCL fucked up and back a mess.

And it probably stunts your growth too a little bit. I don't know. I feel like something happens. If you cut weight, it certainly does. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I didn't really do any sports after, I guess, middle school. And from middle school through high school to college and then after college, I didn't do shit.

You didn't do anything? Nah, I was skinny fat, so I didn't have to. But you didn't work out or nothing? Nah, I didn't work out. That's crazy. Yeah, it's weird. work out or nothing no it didn't work out yeah it's weird if you see a picture of me from like right after college it's i look like this little skinny like stick figure like just soft girl it's really weird so like when people see me now they're like holy shit like people from back then

yeah yeah well they must be freaking out now like she's a what yeah she's in the fucking what she's a ufc contender i know get the fuck out of here no it's really funny yeah exactly like nobody and i was so different well not different but i was like super quiet like all my life like in high school especially in college like i was always just like really shy and really like soft-spoken that's surprising because you're very funny on twitter oh thank you on because you're very funny on Twitter. Oh, thank you. On Twitter, you're hilarious. Well, I was always funny.

You're always funny, just quiet. Nobody knew it. Yeah, I kept it to myself. I crack myself up all day. But yeah, like I'm just super shy, like always awkward around like new people and new settings. And like I had my tight-knit group of friends,

but like I was never like the popular kid by any means so what brought you into muay thai class um a workout yeah i was just fat yeah i just got married and um and i also had an office job i was working at an animation studio and before that i had been bartending so i was like moving around and doing stuff and I never really felt like inactive but once I quit the bar job and was just doing that full time I just felt like fat and lazy and greasy and you know everything that happens from like sitting down all day so I mean you know you like you do all sorts of shit outside of this just to stay happy. Yeah, right.

Yeah, it was really cool discovering it. I was just asking around because I always wanted to learn how to fight. But boxing intimidated me. I'm like, they're not going to want to deal with me. They'd deal with me if I came in when I was 10, but not now as an old old ass fucking girl wanted to learn how to box but then people are telling me like oh muay thai is like really cool and i was afraid of getting bulky you know and they're like oh no if you do muay thai like you'll still look really

natural you won't look like you're on steroids and i was like oh okay i think girls are afraid of that you're afraid of big shoulders yeah yeah i mean I mean, no, I don't care. I'm like, bring it on. But back then, I was really worried about looking like a ninja turtle. That's so funny because it's so hard for a girl to look like that without steroids. Yeah, yeah. But you see some girls who go hard, like the CrossFit girls. Like half my opponents. Yeah. Just all trapped up.

Yeah. There's a few. There's a few that you definitely know something happened in the past. Something happened. They grew up on a farm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the line. A lot of throwing hay around.

So you're 24 years old. You walk into Muay Thai class. When do you get addicted to it? First class, man. Really? First class. First class, my coach, my first coach brandon levi does evolution muay thai in new york uh so that's where you were in new york yeah in new york yeah that's where i

went to school and everything and uh first class i threw like an elbow and a knee on the tie pads and i was like oh because it feels so hard and like i never knew that i could generate that much power with my like little body because i was probably like 115 pounds like wet soaking wet you know at the time so i was just like oh my god like i feel so powerful and like ever since then i was just going every day i was going with my husband like we were like getting in shape learning how to kick and stuff and it was just like a lot of stuff I never thought I'd be able to do I was doing it like even just throwing a head kick like I I didn't like try out for cheerleading because I was inflexible you know I was like I'm

never gonna be able to do this I can't do a high kick I can't do a split or anything like that so being able to get my leg up high enough to kick someone in the head like it was like a huge milestone for me athletically i love a story like that where you didn't do shit from like middle school high school you didn't do shit till you're 24 and then all of a sudden you get addicted to it yeah yeah it was always in me man 10 years later yeah you're a top contender in the UFC. Yeah. That's bananas. It's weird, but it makes sense to me because anytime I tried to do a sport when I was a kid, I would just lose interest. And I think it was because they were all team sports. It was a basketball team, softball, baseball, whatever. I ran track for a few months and all of that stuff.

I was just like, this is stupid like what's the point you know or that or I don't know I didn't like working with people but the one thing I was good at was stealing the ball in basketball so like I never made any shots like I was really bad

at like dribbling and everything but if someone got the ball and they were next to me I'd run over and I'd grab it and just like wriggle until they're just like, like they would just get mad at me and let go of the ball. So I'd steal it and then pass it to the girl that could shoot. So, yeah, that was the one thing I was good at. That's conflict. Yeah.

Maybe that was like a sign of things to come. You're good at conflict. Exactly. I like that. I like that. I like that. Especially because I was so shy outside of that. It was just kind of my outlet. How long was it between your first class and your first fight?

It was about nine months. Wow. Yeah. Right away, you're like balls deep into this thing. Yeah, yeah. For lack of a better expression. I'm like, what else deep could I be? Yeah, what can a girl do?

No, I was balls deep. Over ease deep. Yeah. I was, yeah, I was really into it. And I hadn't considered fighting yet, but my coach was like, I think it was around the time. Have you ever heard of the WKs? So it was around the time of that. ever heard of the WKs? So it was around the time of that. And he was taking a couple of people down.

He was like, hey, you want to do WKs? You want to have a fight? And I was like, oh, are you sure? Like, you sure I'm ready? And it was kind of halfway because, well, I don't know if this is why he asked. But once I said yes, there was a girl that used to train with us who was also doing it in my weight class. And he was like, oh, this is going to be fun. So, yeah, I thought it was cool that he had that confidence in me because all the other girls who were in the tournament had been training a lot longer than me for years even.

So, yeah, I was just like, let's let's do it let's see what happens like i was scared but i also wasn't like putting all my eggs in that basket like i didn't think anything was gonna come from doing muay thai it was just fun at the time right so i went and i beat two girls won the little the champ regional championship or whatever. And from then on, I was just fighting. They had this show in New York called Friday Night Fights. And I got a few shows on that or a few fights on that. I went 14-0 as an amateur Muay Thai fighter.

Then before I went pro, I was trying to get an MMA fight just so I had like one or two amateur MMA fights under my belt. So if I do decide to do it, I have that experience, but no one would fight me. So I ended up going pro anyway, had two pro Muay Thai fights. And then I had my first pro MMA fight two days before the tough tryouts. Wow. Yeah. That's so recent. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.

What year were you on tough? That was six years ago? So I think it was 2014. Yeah. Wow. That's when the tryouts were. And I think it aired. Yeah.

I think our finale was like that december well that makes sense now as to why you've gotten so better so much better over the last few fights you're still fucking learning yeah that's so crazy yeah yeah i shouldn't have been in there it was stupid to show up yeah but it's not because it's interesting like what was it like your first fight when you you know because you here you are you're nine months into training. You did it for fun. And now you're really into it. And then all of a sudden you're inside the ring.

Yeah. I don't know. It was fun. Well, it wasn't fun. It was like fighting is never really fun. I felt like it's just like this sprint. Like if you ever sprinted against someone and you really want to beat them, like that's kind of what fighting feels like a lot of times.

It's like you're just pushing yourself to like this, to like total exhaustion, just trying to beat this person who's like neck and neck with you. And it's just like your lungs just get tired thinking about it. But yeah, it's a blur. I don't really remember it, but I see video and it's super slow and sloppy. But I beat the girl up. I tossed her around or whatever. And yeah, it was really cool.

I think before they say go, I was just like, what the fuck am I doing? How did this happen? You had to feel so weird the day of, right? Yeah, I'm like, I have a BFA. My mom must be like, yeah, yeah, why am I doing this? What's wrong with me? But then I beat her and I was like oh this is cool okay i get it i get it you know and uh and it was cool because i did a couple things that that were

technical you know i like grabbed her by the head and threw her over so that was like something we practiced and uh and yeah i beat another girl uh like maybe 12 hours later in the same tournament like those tournaments they make you sit around forever. But then I was just like, oh man, maybe I'm pretty good at this. Like, yeah, maybe I'll do it again. And then so you do it a few times, you get 14-0 as an amateur.

At what point in time are you thinking, I think I'm gonna be a professional fighter? Still not been. Really? You know, like I went pro going to be a professional fighter. Still not been. Really? You know, like, I went pro just to go pro because, like, if you're 14 to know as an amateur, like, you're not getting fights anymore. You know, like, you're not booking opponents or whatever. They don't want to fuck with you. Yeah, they don't want to fuck with you.

And it's about that time anyway. Like, when I see guys with, like, 30 with 30 amateur fights, boxing is a little different. But in Muay Thai, if you have 30 amateur fights, it's like, come on, guy. Go pro already. No one else is going to have that much experience. And if they do, they're about to go pro or you fought them five times. Right. With boxing, you have the Olympics and you have the Pan Am Games and all these prestigious.

Right, right. With Muay Thai, there's some amateur championships, but there's nothing that's going to put you in a better position as a professional. Exactly, exactly. With boxing, guys like Lomachenko, who's got 200 plus amateur fights, right? Yeah. Same with Gennady Golovkin. Triple G, I think he had around 200 plus amateur fights as well. Yeah.

But those guys are winning world championships and fighting at the top of the heap in amateur boxing. And then developing that skill so that, like, I think Lomachenko won his first world title, like, four fights into his pro career. Oh, wow. Something crazy like that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't follow boxing too much. But, like, yeah, I just know that uh for sure is that like everyone who's made a name for themselves they started off with like fucking 200 300 fights yeah so yeah muay thai

at least in the states isn't the same so uh so it was just time to make that step so i i still wasn't considering that being my career of choice especially because like Muay Thai, you don't make shit. Right. What's the most money you made as a Muay Thai fighter? I think I made 700 bucks on Lion Fight. So that was pretty cool. I was like stoked too. I was like, man, I'm about to make 700 bucks. I wish Lion Fight was bigger. Yeah.

Lion Fight, it's like, I would watch Lion Fight on AXS TV and I'd be like, why the fuck isn't this huge? It was an awesome show. It's an awesome show. The commentary was great. They had Pat Miletic doing commentary. And if you watch the fights, they'd bring in all these Thais,

these world-class fighters, a lot of the European guys. And you're like, God damn, there's some fucking talent. Yeah, I was stoked. And it's so wild to watch. I love Muay Thai. I love watching it. I think my um i'm not sure if it was my first or i did two fights on lion fight so i'm not sure if it was

my amateur fight or my pro fight but one of them i fought on the same card as cyborg and i was like yo this is so cool i'm fighting on the same card as cyborg in lion fight in lion fight so it was the i think she only fought once so it was Jorina Barge. She fought twice. She fought twice in Lion Fight? Yeah, first girl she destroyed. I think it was maybe a French girl or something. Oh, okay. But the first girl she destroyed.

Like, I think my coach, Brandon, he was holding pads for me. And her coach was, oh, do you remember, people made a big deal about this, the girl who got slapped in the corner. Oh, yeah. In a lion fight. Oh, yeah. She was fighting Cyborg. Her coach slapped her, right?

He slapped the shit out of her. And it was like, ooh, because the girl was obviously, she had taken some blows. Like, it was Cyborg. And Cyborg went full Cyborg on her. So she had already taken some blows. And then she gets to the corner. And the first thing the coach does is pop, you know? And it's like, come on, you're going to knock her out.

Well, not only that, like, do you do that a lot? Right. Are you doing that when no one's around? Yeah. That's, you know. Yeah, so it was odd. It was odd. Yeah.

That's right. I forgot about that. I get slapping your fighter to wake him up. I get a little bit, but I don't get physically slapping them. Yo, especially after they were probably concussed from the round. Oh, for sure. Oh, yeah. So, yeah.

So, that was the card that I was on. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So, that was a really big deal for me. So, here you are. You're fighting pro as a Muay Thai fighter.

And then what makes you say you know what I think I'm gonna make a leap into MMA um tough tough yeah so the opportunity yeah the opportunity um because like at that time there were no there was no strawweight weight class uh I was planning on being an Adam Adam weight fighter because I in Muay Thai I fought between 110 and 106. So I was like, oh, I didn't cut weight for it. I just kind of dieted down to it. Does Invicta have Adam weight? They do.

They do. What is the weight limit? 105. 105. Yeah. So Invicta has Adam weight and that was kind of my plan. But I had sent like Invicta highlight reels and i didn't really get a response yet because i didn't have any mma fights yet so that was kind of the scramble to get an mma

fight and then somehow like you know build up a record and get called by and how long had you been training in grappling or takedown defense or MMA in general? I hadn't been doing much MMA training just because in New York there wasn't a lot of it. So you have like those underground MMA fights. Like I had a friend who had done a couple of them. It was literally like you show up, you go to like a a school in the bronx and like you're in their assembly room and there's like a ring there no ambulance like you still have to pay like 30 bucks to get in and it's just like so hood and ratchet and like we we literally saw like saw a kid get matched up against a little person.

Like a midget? Yes, a midget. I'm like, can we say midget? I think you should. My friend Brad Williams, he's a little person. He says you can say it. He says midget? Cool.

Thanks, Brad. Go his way. Yeah, it was a midget. Literally tried to match him up. And the guy was going to knock this kid out. It was a man. A man with man muscles and but it didn't happen how old was the kid the kid they were the same height oh jesus so he wasn't old

that kid was a full-grown kid uh so yeah yeah that but it didn't happen but that was the match-up so that was that was the kind of thing they were working on they were they were like fights with like headgear no headgear some people headgear. Some people had MMA gloves, some people had boxing gloves. Like it was all over the place. I've seen a lot of those online. Yeah. Weird,

like sort of fucking half-assed MMA fights. Yeah. And it happened a lot in New York. Cause that was the only MMA you could do back then. Like even in a pro Muay Thai fight, you couldn't throw elbows. Yeah. Because I don't know why,

but it was just It was Connected to that MMA rule Like Could you knee? You could throw knees To the head Yeah

That's hilarious Yeah it doesn't make sense You throw knees to the head Can you clinch? You can plumb? And you can still throw knees? But you can throw elbows You can't throw elbows

No elbows That's so silly So it was weird God it's fucking people With their rules It was illegal To throw That's so silly You had to go to jail that's so silly

but yeah it's crazy so so when i was in new york uh getting ready to fight mma um i actually got a call from a coach out in north carolina and he's like if you, if you come out here to train with me, then I'll send you to Vegas to do this tryout. And, you know, get you on the show. And I was like, Oh, okay, cool. But I didn't think I was going to get on the show. I was just like, Oh, this would be a cool opportunity to learn some MMA, you know. So, so I go down to North Carolina for for a few months um I end up getting that fight that was like two days before it was like super like you know North Carolina show uh it's called like USFFC or something or USSFZ one of those so uh so I did that and um and I fought a girl that i was actually gonna fight

in atom weight but she pulled out so we fought at straw weight i knocked her out in like the second round i think and um and then flew to vegas the next day so yeah so yeah it was pretty crazy but like yeah i still even on the flight to ve. I'm like, I'm not gonna get on this show They got girls coming from all over the place like they got all those girls and Invicta that I watch You know like there's gonna be like hundreds of girls here at the tryouts and like there was only like I think there's only like 30 Did you have to spar the tryouts Yeah, just grappling that just grab. Yeah, Did you have to spar at the tryouts? Yeah, just grappling, though. Just grappling. Yeah, so you go to the tryouts.

You introduce yourself. There's MMA media there. And you tell them your little story, try to get people behind you or whatever. And then they had handpicked already eight girls to be on the show. And those are all girls that I've seen fight before. So I'm like, whoa, they're going to be on the show and those are all girls that i've seen fight before so i'm like whoa like they're gonna be in the show like they should just put them in like they already know what they're doing and but i was like ah it's cool i'll just go and try out and show face and maybe dana white would like what he sees keep me in mind after i have a few fights and uh i went

there i tried out i did a grappling session where I did well against the person they put me up against. Like, I just stayed on top of it the whole time. How much grappling had you done by then? Well, I had been doing grappling on and off in between, like, my fights. Right. But every time I got a fight, I'd stop. Right. For, like, how long had you been doing grappling?

How many years? I'd say about maybe two years two and a half maybe it's fairly green yeah like i was still a white belt yeah fighting in a professional organization yeah yeah it was pretty nuts and so you stay on top of this girl most of the round yeah yeah and in the coach the north car Carolina coach, he was a wrestling, like straight up wrestling guy. So that was kind of what I needed at the time anyway. So it kind of worked out. And I just like stayed on top of her and her guard and, you know, smothered her or whatever.

And then the part that I shined was the striking part. And my coach, Brandon, came down with me, and we did our little routine. And I did like, you know, you see the ties do like the 20 kicks, left 20 kicks. We did that. And then I started doing like a really hard comma, and I was like, wah, making noise.

And they're like, Angela, stop, stop, stop. Like I couldn't hear them over my yelling. They're like, hey, hey, hey, stop. You're good. You're good.'re good and i was like oh and that was before like the before everyone else was told to stop so so yeah and then i got like a pretty cool compliment from dana after that he was like i've seen a lot of tryouts and that was the best strike and i've seen any tryouts so far. And I was like, whoa. I mean, I'm sure he wasn't being super serious,

but I took that shit to heart. I was like, yo, Dana White said that. Oh my God. So at that point, were you thinking, I might be on this fucking show. I might be on the ultimate fighter. A little bit, a little bit.

But I think I overestimated what the rest of the girls were bringing to the competition. I thought everyone was showing up with like crazy records like winning records but like at that point like especially for strawweight weight class like there were a lot of people just fighting whoever whenever just to just to make a paycheck just to like you know get an injury fixed or whatever so like like uh yeah you had a lot of girls who were straw weights but they fought at bantamweight before

right you know or they fought in like bars before for like a small paycheck so like you didn't really have that much like hardcore experience outside of the uh the official eight that were picked so um so yeah my chances were a lot better than i had realized and even though i only had one fight i obviously uh had a higher striking level than most of the girls that showed up that day so then all of a sudden you're on the ultimate fighter yeah all told you had been training for what at that time time? Four years? Mm-hmm. That is fucking bananas. Yeah. Right? Going from 24, not done shit for all those years.

Yeah. Now, four years later, you have a bunch of Muay Thai fights, one MMA fight. You're on The Ultimate Fighter. Yeah. Like, holy shit, you're on TV. That is a four-year whirlwind. Yeah. That's crazy. It was nuts.

Four years. That is nuts. Yeah. I guess it was like going to college. Only I got a job after. Only it was worth it. Yeah. Wow.

So then when you were on the show, how bonkers was that? It was pretty nuts. I mean, I feel like I had a lot more fun than the other girls who lost. Because you just enjoyed it? Because I was just, yeah, I was just there for the experience. Like, I think coming in there, and this is kind of how I view my marriage, too, is like going in there with low expectations made it actually a lot of fun. And now I'm still married.

That's hilarious. But, yeah. That's a funny way to approach it, right? Because if people go crazy high with the expectations, no one's going to meet those expectations. You're going to be disappointed. Exactly. I got married in City Hall.

I tried out for tough after one fight, and now I'm living large. How are you ranked right now? I don't know. I doubt I'm ranked. You must be. I've never been ranked. What is it? How many girls are in the 115 pound division?

I don't know. I think, I think I've fought most, most of them. I fought, I think I've fought about half of them, half of the top 15. Yeah.

And the problem is I haven't beaten anyone that's ranked now. So that justifies them for not putting me in the rankings. I would have thought after the Cyphers fight you'd get ranked. I don't know. I haven't looked and I've stopped looking. I think well I was ranked once.

I beat how do you say her name? Moros? Marina Moros. Do you remember her? Tall, skinny girl. Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I have to see her name spelled out.

M-O-R-O-Z. Yeah. But she just moved up the flyweight. But she was ranked number 14. And I beat her. And I was like, ooh, waiting for my ranking to pop up. I got to get at least 15. And the only thing that changed was they took her off the list.

So I was like, fuck you guys. Fucking assholes. Come on. And I think after that, they put... Or no, I think I finally made the list. I was like 15, like months later. But then Mackenzie Dern like misweight by like a gazillion pounds and knocked out fucking ABC. And they were like, pluck.

It took me off the rankings. So I was like, fuck those guys. So after that, I stopped looking. And I think that was like another part of that, you another part of that mental stress that I kept putting on myself. I'm like, man, I keep losing. I'm never going to make this ranking. I'm never going to be valued as a fighter. And really, the only thing that the ranking does is maybe gets you a few more dollars when you resign your contract.

The rankings don't really judge that much. Like if I go on a five fight win streak and I'm not ranked, it doesn't matter. I'm still like a contender. You know, people are still going to be like, when is Angela going to fight the champ? She's been killing everyone.

So I shouldn't put too much value into it. And eventually the rank will come but like at the time i was just like man this is this is stupid like they keep doing this to me like i've had like it's not like i'm getting smashed by the top girls like i'm having competitive fights like the only fights that i got finished were uh the rose fight where i was super green that was my third fight uh she had almost won the ultimate fighter and then uh and then the randa fight where I just was like totally fucking fucking myself in my own brain so like aside from those two fights I had always been like a con I was I had always been competitive

and I feel like even some of those I could have won if it was like different judges. But like the rankings never reflected that. So since then I stopped. Like once I realized that I tried to stop paying attention to it just because I felt like it was affecting my own self-worth. You know, like I was doubting myself as if this thing judged like how good of a fighter I was. Right. So, yeah. Well, you're in a learning stage still this is so that's what's so crazy about you is that you're you've only really been doing martial arts for 10 years i mean that is fucking crazy because like 10 years is when it

all starts coming together as a martial artist yeah yeah and i think uh somebody told me that i think uh i have a friend who's an actor and he he was actually on the same uh muay thai team that i went down to my first fight with and he's acting in la now and um when i was telling talking to him like man like you're really like he started like getting some bigger gigs and i was like man that's really awesome that it's all coming together for you and he's like yeah they say it only takes 10 years like 10 years once you start getting your groove in any profession yeah comedy the same way that's what they say about a comedian 10 years in you're a real headliner nice nice so like i just rounded 10 years and things just fucking fell fell together you know like things have fallen in place the hannah cypress

fight i mean i told you this online but but when I saw it, I was like, she turned a corner. Yeah. It's like, you see that sometimes. In fighters, you see, like, there's a moment where they break through, where it all comes together, and they're putting things together in a different way. And you feel it. You know, like, you feel it when you watch watch them when you know that they've turned a corner

and that's what I thought in the Cyphers fight when you were on top of her hitting her with those elbows I was like Jesus Christ I was like that is you were so ferocious I was like that

that is that's someone who's turning a corner like you turned a corner you became a finisher I mean you finished two people in a row right yeah

yeah and I think I think I was a uh angry with the reception of my last finish too uh just because like well i didn't like i would have been okay if the fight went on because i was surprised that i got that they stopped it as well um but you didn't think you got the props you deserved no i didn't get the props and i I was like, all right, I got to show them. And it wasn't just that. It was also I took a peek at the scorecards after the fight. And they had her winning the second round.

And I was like, get the fuck out of here. Like, I think two out of three judges scored the second round for her. So going into the third, it was one and one. And I thought I was tooling her but i was still like okay i got i'm still gonna be aggressive i'm still gonna land these elbows you know this and that um but it kind of uh it kind of showed me like dude you gotta finish these fights yeah because even though i feel like i'm winning and like the punches that hit me aren't marking me. They aren't like hurting me, cutting me.

And I'm like, I can hit them and see the black eye as I bring my fist back to my face. You know what I mean? Like you feel the difference in power. They don't see that. Like the judges don't see that. So I'm, you know, I have to like, I feel like I have to finish fights in order to get the result that I want. That's got to be so frustrating when you're fighting as a professional and the judges... I mean, I say this so many times.

The Houston fight was fucking bananas. Dude, and I was so happy you guys went on that rant because I've been seeing it. Dominic was going crazy. Dominic was so angry. He was so angry. And afterwards, he was still angry. He was so happy you guys went on that rant because I've been saying it. Dominic was going crazy. Dominic was so angry. He was so angry. And afterwards, he was still angry. He was so fucking mad. And he should be.

He should be. It was, you know, whoever the fuck scored John Jones four rounds to one over Dominic Reyes should never score a fight again. Yeah. There's no way. Because it's like the criteria that you use to say that he was dominant one round. You can't possibly use that for the next round. It doesn't make any sense. John won for sure the last two rounds.

And he might have won the third. Might have won the third. I watched that fight three times since then. I'm like, whew, that third round is fucking close. Dominic landed some real good shots, but so did John. So did John. John kept pressing. That was like right when he started slowing down, right?

Yep. Dominic started slowing down, and John started turning it on. It was somewhere around the third. It just seemed like the third is the five. That's the round. But one and two are clear Dominic Reyes, and that judge did not score the second round. I think the first round he gave it to Dominic, and the second round he gave it to John Jones. No. You can't do that, man.

You can't do that. You don't know what you're watching. There was another judge that gave the third round to Jones. One gave the second round and I thought the second round

was closer than the third. The biggest robbery of the night was earlier. Yeah. It was Andre Yule versus Jonathan Martinez. Oh, I didn't get to see that one.

That was a fucking robbery. Ski masks, guns, duct tape. Fuck you. That was a goddamn robbery. That kid won. Martinez won that fight. He watched that. You're like, when they announced the decision, we were like, what the fuck is happening?

That was the first bad one of the night. But that was the worst one. That was the worst one of the night. But that was the worst one. That was the worst one of the night. I thought KGB won, too. I did, too. That was another one, right? Well, everybody was booing like crazy. Yeah, yeah.

I said it to her after the fight. I thought you won that fight. Yeah, yeah. She threw way more shots. She was more, I mean, it was a close fight. It was a good fight. You know, but I thought she won that fight, too. It was just fucking terrible.

It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. How do you fix that? You got to fix those commissions. I mean, look, Vegas does a real good job. They do a better job than ever. They're getting better at it. But they still have judges that have no martial arts experience in Vegas.

They still have that. That just shouldn't take place. And there's my other fight that i'm like fuck that fuck that i want it is uh the courtney casey fight i don't know if you saw that split decision yeah went against you i thought you won that fight too thank you thank you i did that was that was a close fight it was a good fight but i thought you won that fight yeah but it was like uh i think well i don't i don't have this conspiracy, but my husband, he like went and Googled who, or not Googled, but figured out who the judges were. And one judge scored it 30-27 for Casey somehow.

And it's like, how the fuck? You know, like how the, but so whenever he sees this guy's name now, he's like, oh shit. Open scoring. We need open scoring. Here we go again. We need open scoring. Yeah. We need open scoring. It should be announced at the end of the round.

It should be announced to the audience. So the audience boos the fuck out of the judges. Yeah. With the judge's name and a picture of their face. Yes. Right next to it. Yes. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Because I went online after the fight to try to find pictures of some of those judges from Houston and they couldn't even find their pictures. Right. I didn't look that hard, but I looked a couple of pages into Google. I bet Adam could figure it out. My husband could figure it out. He's Google-fu, man. He's good at it. Him and Jamie should have a Google off. Jamie's the

Google master. Find the judge that screwed me over. There's some people that shouldn't be doing it. I think there should be more judges. I think three is crazy. Glory has five for kickboxing. i think three is crazy i think we should like glory has five for uh kickboxing and uh i mean i think five is is a good number it's a better number six probably even better yeah it's an octagon you have one for each panel yes that's not a bad idea that is not a bad idea one for each panel is actually a very good idea because

i definitely see a different fight from being there live and then watching it on camera. Like I see a totally different fight. Well, sometimes even watching when I'm at the cage, I want to see it in person. But sometimes I got to look at the monitor. And then I look at the monitor, it looks clearer. I see things that I'm not seeing just looking through the cage. And for a long time, judges didn't even have monitors. Oh, shit.

Now at least they have monitors. But I think you're right i think eight is the the magic number yeah it's not like they pay those people a fuckload of money either yeah right just fucking do it so you definitely need more voices because when you have something like uh you know a decision like the john jones fight with uh dominic reyes who i'm not against the decision. It's not a robbery. I mean, I could see an argument that Dominic Reyes won the fight. I like John getting the decision because I like the guy who wins the last rounds more.

I think it means more because, look, if they're fighting to the death, I have all my money on John Jones because John Jones is dominating the fourth, dominating the fifth. That's a 10-round fight. I don't think Dominic Reyes is going to make it.

I don't think he's going to make it. And that means something. That means something. Because a fight. I don't think Dominic Reyes is going to make it. Right. I don't think he's going to make it. And that means something. That means something. Because a fight, it's, look, it is a game, right? It is a sport. You're scoring. And it should, the score should count. But I think the last round should count more.

And that's how Pride used to do it. They used to judge the fight overall. They do that in Muay Thai, too, like traditional Thai rules. It's like they dance, or no, not dance. They fill out the first round, then they fight the second and third round, and then like the fourth round, I guess, decides who wins. And then the fifth round is just a dance. Really?

Yeah. That's a lot because gambling, and then they fight every weekend too, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they're like, hey, I lost, so let's just dance it out. And if they really want it, they'll still try to get a knockout the fifth round. But usually it's just dance. We have to do something. We have to do something.

It's gotten to, when you get to a place like Houston, and look, I love Texas. I love going there. I love the people. I really love Texas. But that was an embarrassment. And there's no way that that should be a place where you have world title fights. There's no way. Unless they fix something. There's no way.

I mean, can you imagine? I was surprised it wasn't in Vegas. Well, you know, they needed a good card for Houston. Yeah. I mean, it was packed. Crowd was amazing. It was great. Yeah, it was fun. I got to go to that one. Oh, that's right. But yeah, definitely

a weird night in judging. So are you leaving from here straight to the airport and going to New Zealand? Yeah. What is that flight? Does it take three years? How long does it take to get there? Oh, man. It's going to feel like it.

It's like, I think it's 15 hours. 15 fucking hours. So yeah. Are you worried about coronavirus and shit when you fly? Yes. Yeah. You kind of have to be, right? Yeah.

I mean, I'm less worried about it and shit when you fly yes yeah yeah i have to be right yeah i mean i'm less worried about it than uh adam he's like the worrywart of the two of us so i'm kind of like i'll be fine you know whatever but it's definitely like a thing that i should be worried about like i think it just showed up in san diego uh like last week or something like two two people had it in san diego and now that they're testing for uh they're using a different test to detect it they're getting even more cases of it so so scary it's already came from i was just uh listening to a podcast yeah um my friend ryan callahan's podcast today They were talking about It came from people eating weird animals From a marketplace Like bats and snakes and shit

No Yeah bro in China They eat whatever the fuck They can get a hold of sometimes Yeah I mean There was this one lady who got arrested And she got arrested for serving

Or selling all these different animals She was selling eagles No Yeah I know we She was selling eagles. No. Yeah. I know we get weird about eagles, but we don't give a fuck about a chicken. I don't know.

They're so noble. They're big. They're big as shit. They're big as shit. I feel bad when it's bigger than normal. Like a really big- Like an elephant. Yeah, yeah. Like a really big elephant,

I feel really bad about eating just because I feel like its brain is bigger. So it's probably more likely to be like sentient. Oh, I'd have to be starving to death to eat an elephant. Yeah. It'd have to be like I'm trapped in the bush and I got a rifle. Oh, I would never eat an elephant. Like an elephant, like just an elephant. Like they're like so amazing.

They have incredible memories too. Yeah. There's this crazy video of an elephant being reunited with, amazing. They have incredible memories, too. There's this crazy video of an elephant being reunited with, I think it's a sibling or a daughter or a mother or something like that. And they hadn't seen each other in 12 years. And they see each other and they run to each other and wrap their trunks around each other. It's crazy. That is not like a deer. Deer don't even know what the fuck's going on. They're like, boop, boop, boop.

You know? Is that a car? Let me run in front of it. Yeah. Oh, shit. Elephants. They can teach elephants to paint themselves. Have you ever seen that?

No. Dude, you got to see this. Elephants can paint themselves. They can paint an elephant. Yeah. Like, just with them holding onto the brush with their trunk they make a trunk they make the body they make the tail it's crazy that's so cool they trained an elephant to paint himself that's so crazy it's so weird to watch so they could be smarter than apes then right

or is it just is it just different the thing is the thing where it's hard to tell is like apes have fingers right they can move stuff around. Chimps have incredible memories. They have incredible short-term memories. Chimps have better memories than us when it comes to they'll flash a bunch of things on a screen. And chimps can point out exactly what they saw if they get a reward. Like if they get candy. They'll give them candy if they can lay out some numbers and some things in the correct order. Where you or I would be like, what the fuck did I see?

I don't remember. We're burdened by too much information and data and all sorts of different things. Chimps can just do it. They have that one motivator. Yeah, they want that candy. But their memory is incredible. Chimps have bananas memories. That's cool.

For lack of a better term. Did you find that video of the uh elephant with the the brush it's so weird to watch i mean apparently this is like they train this elephant specifically to learn how to do this but it's still crazy impressive because he's he does a really good job like better than like a four-year-old would like a four-year-old person like you know one of my kids in their four they they wouldn't do as good a job of making a fucking elephant. Did it look in the mirror? I don't remember what it did.

It was a self-portrait. Right. How does it know? You got it, Jamie? I'm trying to find the exact one you're talking about. This has been a controversial story, I believe. Right. It is.

Well, I think it's controversial because they taught the elephant how to paint himself. But it's still. So the training methods are probably controversial? I don't think it's controversial about it. I don't think they abused him. Is that what they're thinking? I'm looking hard for the video and that's what's coming up is abuse or not abuse.

Yeah, but that's animal rights dipshits. Those people get fucking crazy. I do feel really guilty about when I went to Thailand just to train out there, and I did one of those elephant ride things. I do, too. Yeah.

And I do feel guilty about it. Me, too. Thank you. I'm glad you did. Yeah. My whole family was like, that was so fun. I was like, I'm not doing that again. Yeah.

I'm like, I felt bad. I mean, you feed the elephant? You can tell, because- So here it is. Look at this. Look at this elephant. So he's painting himself. It's a baby. Yeah. But I mean, he's at this. Look at this elephant. So he's painting himself. It's a baby.

Yeah. But I mean, he's, I don't know how you could say he's being abused. I mean, he's just doing that. It doesn't seem like there's any weird motivators other than, you know, they taught him how to do it. They probably gave him some treats. No. He's drawing a trunk.

Yeah. What the hell? No, I mean, they're all drawing themselves. What? There's more than one. Yeah. Oh, he's drawing a duck that's crazy but just the fact that they can do that they can create yeah something and it reasonably resembles what they are what they're making yeah i'm glad you said that like maybe a mirror in front of them yeah no he's like he didn't have a mirror. He's doing like a Van Gogh or something.

It's pretty close to what an elephant looks like. It says the truth about elephant paintings. What is the truth? It must be like a stencil that they had. They're just like tracing it or whatever. Not tracing that, but they must have trained them to make a certain shape.

So I doubt that the elephant knows that that's him you know but who knows who knows they could be smarter than all of us well don't they say like fucking uh what is it what is it squid octopus and squid yeah they're really stupid smart really smart like but they only live for like a couple weeks yeah so it's like how the fuck does that work Yeah I think octopus live like two years Or something stupid

That's so crazy But I'm glad you said that About the elephants in Thailand I felt bad Yeah I didn't like the riding them thing But you fed them We get to feed them sugar cane

Yeah that was the best part Were you near Chiang Mai No I didn't get to go to any sanctuary Like the elephant sanctuary Oh yeah Where you get to like Bathe them Yeah yeah that's what we did yeah just run around with them yeah you clean them and and then you feed them sugar cane yeah and then you ride them and i was the riding part i was like i

don't want to do it i felt they had did they have that big hook the hook when they so when we went to the one that we went to they have this this big pole with a little hook on the end. It never hits them or anything, but it's just resting on their shoulder. No, they didn't have that. They just had a rope. That was their training tool, I figured. That was what they used to get them to behave. It's like someone sitting next to you with a whip.

You know what it could do. It didn't do anything, but you just know it's like it's like someone's sitting next to you with like a whip you know like you know what it could do it didn't do anything but you just know it's there no they this place one thing that i will definitely say is that they treated those elephants like pets yeah they treated them really well they pet them and you could tell they had a sweet relationship with them like the elephant would wrap their trunk around the people and the people would rub their head yeah they wanted to be around those people. And then they would feed them a lot of sugar cane. Like we had these big stalks of sugar cane. And they would make you – see, the whole idea was a rehabilitation thing for elephants. And a lot of the elephants had been in circuses and zoos and things like that.

And then they actually had reintroduced a lot of them to the wild. And when we were there, these elephants were not in cages. They were free roaming. Oh, that's awesome it was crazy their power they just wrap their trunk around shit just pull it out of the roots and then just start eating it like but then they're also really gentle really like when they grab stuff out of your hand it's just like like they they just like they fill your hand and then they grab the treat around it and it's like it's just like what but they can how are they actually i know they're really they're fucking smart yeah they're smart as shit they can

bring those elephants back to a place where they can exist in the wild because they basically eat everything that's in the jungle they just grab it and eat it they know what to do so while we're hanging out with them they're just pulling trees out of the roots and just eating them right there yeah but their their their disposition is so interesting it's just so interesting to be around them just big and gentle big and gentle i mean they're so fucking big and they help you get up on them they lift their leg up and you stand on their leg yeah and then you pull yourself up onto their back and then you hang on to this rope that's uh around them they didn't seem to mind that you were on their back but it still it felt

like i would rather just feed them and pet them. Yeah, like they're not going to do that in a while. They're not going to be like, hey, buddy. Like, hey, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And then they go down to this pond and then you wash them in the pond and everything. It was.

Yeah. It's interesting. That one was really cool. I wanted to go up to Chiang Mai, but we were at this place called. There it is right there. That's exactly where we were. Ah, that's it is right there. That's exactly where we were. Ah, that's so pretty. Yeah, that's exactly where we were.

And so you go out there and you pet them. They love it. They're like, oh, you're giving us a bath. That's how you see all the cute baby elephants frolicking. Oh, there it is. Oh, my God. They love the bath, too. Oh, my God.

But that water is filled with shit. They just shit in the water while you're out there. Would you really mind, though? It's elephant shit. It's not that bad. It's just leaves. It's probably lucky in some cultures, you know? I'm sure it is.

Just put it on your nose. I went to a wolf sanctuary this past weekend. Not this past weekend. What's today? I went Friday. Yeah, Friday. Is that nearby? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's depressing. Oh, really? it's depressing oh really well they all are abused well but being rehabilitated or something no no they're not abused but they're they're contained and that's what's depressing it's like most of them came from people wanting a wolf from a pet for a pet they're like oh i'm gonna have a wolf i'll be a badass and then it just rips your house apart and doesn't listen to you at all. And you realize, oh, my God, this isn't a dog. Yeah, yeah. It's a fucking wolf. Like, it started off so well.

Some of them are so big. Yeah. But to me, what was depressing was, first of all, they neuter them when they get in there. They kind of have to because they don't want them to breed because then they'll create more of the same situation. But then the other thing is that they're in this pen and then they don't get to be free. So it's not like a big area? No, it's not that big. The pen they were in is not as big as the studio.

It's not that big for a fucking wolf. Wolves want to run and hunt. That's what they want to do. They want to hunt. So they never re-released them into the wild or anything? No. Listen to this though listen to how that's when we're leaving we're leaving they were howling they wanted you

to come back well we went into the pens see how little the pens are though yeah we went into the pens and pet them like these people they're amazing and they're doing an amazing job don't get me wrong yeah i mean they're keeping these animals alive and they're feeding them and they do love them and they go in there and take care of them and pet them but to me it's like that's a fucking wolf that wolf should be on a mountain somewhere it should be chasing down a deer it shouldn't be living like that i don't pretty man they're beautiful it's just i just bummed me out yeah it made me feel like i went to a prison yeah you know like these are incredible animals and they're the only way they can keep them is to that's forrest glunt who's a wildlife biologist who's been on the

podcast for i'm getting kissed right there by a wolf they're very sweet like you can you can some of them you can pet and hug them and hang on to them and they like you like they like people but they're fucking wolves like you you're you're not telling them shit like there's no sit lie down fuck you right like they're wolves well that's good that they have somewhere to i don't know i guess stay alive rescue them from like yes people who would have just like put them down themselves you know so and that is a lot of what they did they did keep a lot of them from being put down but but i left there feeling really depressed isn't that how that um i forget what his name is but he has a huge instagram uh and he has

like all the big cats oh yeah fuck what is his name is it? Yeah, I can't think of it. But it's like something, cat something, big cat something. It probably doesn't even say that. But that's what I'm like, ooh, big cat videos. But yeah, the guy goes in and he like cuddles with them. And it's always like someone who had a pet tiger who was like, this is going to be cool. And then it wasn't. It's mostly people in Texas. Yeah, I bet.

You know, there's more tigers in captivity in texas in people's backyards and there aren't all the wild of the world are there what are there are there like no laws or something with like animals stuff doesn't give a fuck you want a giraffe go get yourself a giraffe oh my god you just have a tiger that might be fun get a giraffe i feel like a giraffe would be more chill of staying in a small list. Oh, they're so chill. Yeah, they're just like, give me leaves. I used to have a bit about them.

They're the only animals that I don't feel bad for at the zoo because they're walking around the zoo like, another day with no lions. Yeah, exactly. And they're just wandering around. Oh, lions majestic. It's just a random account. I was trying to find this out. Yeah, no, that's not it.

Oh, no, it's called Black Jaguar something Yeah Black Jaguar something Yeah yeah yeah That's right But yeah it's a lot like that Black Jaguar something It's not

Black Jaguar White Tiger That's it Yeah That's it Yeah I'm not sure where it is But

Yeah Yeah that's it There it is Black Jaguar White Tiger Yeah he's just Cuddling Tigers and shit What Oh he's just cuddling tigers and shit.

Yeah, try to look it up. Oh, he's in Mexico? We rescued animals born and sold in Mexico from horrible circumstances. The most depressing shit I ever saw for sure was a tiger sanctuary in Thailand. Ooh. Ooh, it was so depressing because they were all drugged. Because you could take a picture with a tiger, the tiger's landing like this. Yeah.

Just like a drug prostitute in a room yeah and people like smiling and taking pictures and i said i am not going in that fucking cage yeah i'm not taking part of it like we we thought it was just a tiger sanctuary yeah rescue tigers you go look at tigers i'm like be cool for my kids to see some tigers but then we got there i'm like oh no these people are getting, and there's a difference because they have little cubs and so you go in a room and there's a pen and these little cubs,

they're tiny, they're only a couple of weeks old or four or five weeks old. Whatever it is, they can be around people, six weeks old. And you can play with them, but they're super energetic.

They're jumping on you and they're swatting things and they're playing with each other and rolling around. And then as they get older, it gets to a year or two and then they stop. They stop being natural and then they're all drugged. So you could be around the littler tigers and there's a bunch of handlers around and everybody's real nervous. They keep the tigers away from you and the tigers, they're looking at you, but they're there.

But they're only like a year old. Then you get to the full-grown tigers and they're just fucked up. They're all drugged. They're all at you, but they're there. But they're only like a year old. Then you get to the full-grown tigers, and they're just fucked up. They're all drugged. They're all drugged. That's crazy. It's depressing. My brain never thought of like, oh, yeah, they must be drugged in order to be sitting in a room with strangers and not freaking out. Would you go there?

I never thought about it. You could tell. But, yeah, that makes so much sense. Have you ever had one of these? CBD Kill Cliff? Is it USADA approved? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just CBD.

I'm addicted to these though. These are Kill Cliffs. Like overkill. Pretty goddamn good, right? Yeah, that's pretty good. 25 milligrams. Thanks. But if you go into that room and the cage rather and see the tigers, you know right away they're drunk.

Because they're just laying there like this. Yeah, yeah. And that's the nice thing with that black jaguar tiger guy. You always see the tigers are playing with him. They're swatting him around like the kittens you were talking about. And you can see their claws are retracted. They actually like the guy. They're just having fun.

Yeah, they could tear him apart at any point, but they're still nibbling on him and stuff. Fuck that. Dude, that guy is crazy. He's like the big cat Steve Irwin, I guess. Yeah, he's nuts. There's a few of those guys. There's a guy in Texas that does that. No kidding.

Yeah, another one in texas but he's got um a tiger rehabilitation place it's the same kind of deal like wrestles with these tigers and plays with them and shit and you're like this is not gonna end well bro did you watch sigfried and roy yeah yeah a lot of times they just decide to go tiger on you oh my god yeah and then it's like bye tiger yeah yeah put things yeah the wolf thing was a real bummer i didn't think it was gonna bum me out as much but it bummed me out i mean i'm happy that those people are doing it and then i think what they're doing is amazing don't get me wrong but for me like just the feeling of the like being around

that thing like oh that thing wants to run yeah that thing wants to, oh, that thing wants to run. Yeah, yeah. That thing wants to, you just open that gate. That's like your animal, right? Like wolves. You're like a big on wolves. Did you see, what was that movie at the very end? He goes once more into the fray. Oh, was that William Neeson? Yeah, yeah. The gray.

Yeah, the gray. The gray. That was a good one. I have a friend of mine who shot an elk in Alberta. And the elk, he didn't know it, but the elk, when they shot it with a bow and arrow, the elk ran and died, and they were trying to pack the elk out, and these wolves started circling them. They didn't realize they were in a wolf's den.

Oh. They shot the elk, and the elk literally died right outside the wolf's den. And the wolves decided to claim the elk. So they're circling them so these guys had their back to a tree they shot three of them as they ran at them damn wild big wolves and they were big right like big wolves like real 125 pound wolves damn yes it's like yeah when i walk it yeah you can find the video john dud, who's a good friend of mine who was on the podcast talking about it. But he only had three arrows left, and his friend only had three bullets.

So they're standing there with their back to a tree, and they got like fucking 20 wolves around them. That's crazy. It's crazy. That's so cool. Yeah. To live and tell that story is fucking awesome. Well, he's got the skulls of the wolves. Oh, my God.

I have one of them on my desk at home. So did they just back off after they took out a few? Yeah, once they realized that they killed three of them,

the wolves were like, okay, this is not good. They wanted that elk. Yeah. Did they leave the elk at least? No, they didn't leave the elk.

They took it. they're like, fuck you wolves. Fuck you wolves. Superior fucking species. Yeah, the wolves didn't know that my friend john was down to one arrow because he killed two with his ball bow and the other guy is down to like two bullets

damn that's crazy fuck yeah it's crazy so lucky man well those animals used to kill everybody that's what little red riding hood was all about yeah yeah yeah do you know there was a ceasefire in world war one because they were fighting in Russia? The Germans and the Russians were fighting. And so many people were getting killed by wolves that they decided to have a ceasefire. Huh. Because the wolves in Russia are just fucking ruthless. Is that like when it was snowing and stuff?

Yeah. And the wolves were eating the soldiers. Damn. They were killing soldiers that were on patrol. And they were also like when someone got wounded and they were on the battlefield, they would just get torn apart by wolves in front of everybody. That would make a great movie. Yeah, it would make a great movie.

So they had to share communication back and forth between, I'm pretty sure it was the Germans and the Russians, and they said, let's just kill some wolves for a while. Yeah. And so they had a ceasefire they killed wolves and they went back to killing each other damn yeah damn like fucking history is no joke that's nuts yeah so back to fighting speaking of caged wolves how much do you walk around at how much do you walk around at? I don't walk that heavy. I try to stay above 30, 130, but usually it doesn't happen.

So I'll be between 130, 125. So you only have to cut 10. Yeah, I only have to cut 10. I've never been a big straw weight. What do you weigh right now? Probably like 125. And so you're fighting this weekend yeah i'm fighting this weekend so how do you do you taper off or do you just cut

the water i taper off this week so i was eating like pasta for dinner like all the way up until this morning you know so like that's how i keep my weight on because otherwise like my metabolism just from training and running like i'll be at like 120 without even trying so if adam weight was a weight class you would go there well that's the thing like it's such a big jump so it's a weird one for me because like 110 is probably like my healthiest weight class 105 i start to look crazy like that's what like skeletal or like yeah skeletal like i posted a video recently and um it was from like uh somebody was following me before one of my muay thai fights and dude i look so crazy like i look like straight up like is it on your instagram or yeah yeah it's

on my instagram but i think you can see just like my cheekbones it's just like a still of me throwing a kick but like my cheekbones are so sunken in and there it is right there yeah like my cheekbones it's just like a still of me throwing a kick but like my cheekbones are so sunken in and there it is right there yeah like you can see it like i look like my weigh-ins and i was probably about 113 right there so you're really dieting hard yeah yeah like i'm i'm on my like calorie counter i'm making sure I'm not eating carbs after six. Carbs after sundown, that was the rule. No carbs after sundown. It's got to be harder for women, right?

Because your body wants to hold more body fat than a man's. I've never had a problem cutting weight. I've always been okay. I think I just never tried to cut too much. I think if I was bigger, then it would be an issue. Like, a lot of girls, they see who's cutting weight and how big they get, and then they get scared. So they try to go down a weight class below them. Right.

And so, like, I mean, if you look at Amanda Nunes, she doesn't, she isn't really the biggest bantamweight, you know? Like, she's kind of a natural bantamweight. Like, she looks about the same size as Nina Ansaroff. So it's like. You's kind of a natural man. Like, she looks about the same size as Nina Ansaroff. So, it's like. You think so? I think so. When I see her in, like, fight camp, or when I see them both outside of fight camp, they look about, like, the same size. I disagree.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, I think Amanda looks thick. Her shoulders. Yeah, but she's all shoulders. Like, her waist is small. Like, she's not, like, I don't know. She's not, like, built up. Right. She's not, like but she's all shoulders like her waist is small like she's not like i don't know she's not like built up right she's not like muscular yeah yeah she's just she's just a little broad but like she's she's um it's not like cyborg yeah yeah exactly she's not like

cutting like to the point where she looks like she's about to die yeah but she's still a world beater so like it's kind of it's kind of cool to see that and i think a lot of people perform better when they're not cutting a ton of weight just just because like you're in there more natural you're moving the same way you move in training whereas if you cut like a shit ton of weight you're like kind of half cocked you know like you're you're already like depleted and your brain's not as healthy you don't have as much water in there you're just weaker yeah you're already like depleted and your brain's not as healthy. You don't have as much water in there. You're just weaker, yeah.

Yeah, you're just weaker all around. There's a point of diminishing returns, right, where you just cut too much. If you cut a little bit, you're probably pretty good. But like a lot of people became who they really should have been once they moved up in weight, like Masvidal or Dustin Poirier. Like Dustin Poirier just couldn't make 45 anymore. Now he's having a hard time making 55. He's so big he might have to move up to 70 yeah and your body just like kind of fights against you like once you had all those like really tough weight because and that's why i'm not like super on that like oh i'm gonna go to 105 train like i might try it once i feel like everyone gets like one one missed yeah yeah if it existed like i might try once and

if i miss it i'd be like all right not gonna do that again you know but um that's got to be hard too to go through the camp like diminishing yourself in camp yeah like tj dillashaw is the worst example right when he went down to 125 he looked horrific and that's what i would look like like i look like all skin and bones and like muscles, you know, and like it's like scary. But at the same time, when I did do it, which granted was about eight years ago, when I did do it, I only dieted. Like I didn't know anything about like water cuts or like, you know, I didn't do hot baths or anything like that. I would just diet down to about 112 and then not eat anything the next day. And that was me making weight.

I really wish there was more weight classes in MMA. Women's MMA and men's MMA. At least with women's, it's now 10-pound increments. Yeah, it was insane when it was just 135 and 115. You had people killing themselves trying to make 115. That's such a giant gap with women yeah and then pound gap is huge yeah and then the girls are so much bigger at 135 like crazy big like uh kat sagano was at alliance for a little bit and when she wasn't at weight i was

just like dude like there's no reason i should be training with you right now. She's a strong girl. You're just fucking bullying me around. I know. You're just tossing me like a little rag doll. She's in her 60s, right? When she's not training. I'm not sure. She's got to get close to 160. I'm not sure.

She's a large lady. Yeah. And I mean that in a good way. Yeah, yeah. Large and in charge. Yeah. She's fucking strong as shit. Yeah, yeah.

She's an athlete, man. She's an athlete. Big athlete. Just tough. I remember her fight with Amanda Nunes when Amanda had her really rocked in that first round and then she came back to stop her. Yeah, that was amazing. To this day, when she won that fight and screamed, poof, it just gives you chills.

Yeah. It was like one of the most primal- That blood-curdling, like- Yeah, because that was just like- Conan. Yes. It was like from her bones. Yeah. Just like- Yeah, yeah. Like, that's not- That was just like Conan Yes It was like from her bones Just Yeah

Yeah Like that's not How she won And she went through hell In that first round That fight fucked her up For a long time Yeah

She was talking about it On the podcast She got brain damage From that fight Yeah yeah She's still like Recovering from it That is crazy

Yeah it's just Amanda Nunes is a freak She's a monster She's a freak. She should be put in jail for what she's doing. She's poor woman. Well, when she clipped Cyborg, you could see Cyborg going, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah.

Because, like I said, it doesn't look like she hits that hard. Oh, my God. She hits so hard. She hits, and then it lands. It's just like, whoa. Yeah, she's got something going on. It's crazy how some people just have this weird power they got that touch yeah yeah like deontay wilder like he's the best example of it's like

what the fuck yeah a little alex perera you know alex perera and glory he's the only guy that's knocked out israel adesanya knocked him out in a kickboxing fight he's a fucking freak it's the same thing with a punch or he knocked him out With a left hook Yeah One punch Boom Flatlined him That's crazy

Yeah He hits so fucking hard He knocks out everybody Nice But it's one of those Weird guys Where you know Sometimes people just

Have this power Yeah This weird freaky power Yep And I'm still hopeful That like that's gonna be me Eventually Because like

You know Amanda Nunes Didn't really do that for a long time. Yeah, yeah. And then after that cat fight, I think after the Shevchenko, the first Shevchenko fight, she just started finding her groove and finding that money mark. And then her timing got a lot much better. Yeah, yeah. She also just really took her training far more seriously and invested much more time in her strength and conditioning. Yeah, yeah. She also just really took her training far more seriously and invested much more time in her strength and conditioning.

Oh, okay. That's a big factor because Amanda would get tired, and that's what happened in the Kat Zingano fight. Yeah. She had Kat Zingano really badly hurt in the first round, but then Kat, just so tough, she came back in the second and wound up stopping her. I think she stopped her in the third.

Same with the first Shevchenko fight, too. I think that's why the rematch happened because uh valentina just had a really strong last round against her so she's like nip that in the butt yeah but it's interesting how like you need weight classes you need those increments because valentina 125 is just a fucking monster yeah she's a monster yeah yeah she's so good it's such a huge gap too yeah like it's such a huge gap between like i don't know a number one contender and champ doesn't even make sense it's crazy that fight i did my best to pump up caitlin chukagian and to make it seem like it's going to be a good fight but all i could think of is like how is this girl going to beat her

yeah how are you going to beat her? She does everything perfect. Yeah. I thought like numbers, like if you're going just like volume, you know, I thought that Caitlyn could like, you know, close the gap a bit.

I didn't think so. This is why. Because Caitlyn, she uses points. She scores well, but she very rarely knocks people out. Like she knocked down Liz Karmouche with a head kick right but liz survived and wound up winning the decision right right but you like valentina makes

you pay she makes you pay so like all those like shots that she would throw the volume it's different because there's you put the shots out there and then pop and it comes back and you're just like whoa those those kicks come back at you and you're like fuck yeah elbow comes back and you're like whoa so now you're like now everything's more at a distance and you you lose your ability to engage you get nervous because every time you engage she's looking to take your fucking head off yeah yeah she answers especially after that jessica i fight oh yeah whoa yeah that crazy. I think that's the one that made me a fan. Because I was hating for a while. I was like, she ain't that good.

She just hasn't fought anyone yet. She beat up that poor girl. Oh, the Brazilian girl? I think she's fighting. No, she's not fighting in Auckland, right? I do not know. I don't know if she's on that card. But I don't remember her name.

They should have stopped that fight way, way, way before that. They shouldn't have made that fight. I was just like, come on, guys. They shouldn't have made that fight. That's just mean. But after that, I was just like, man, y'all are giving her all these props for destroying this poor girl. And she shouldn't have been in there against anyone. But then after the Jessica I-Fi, I was like, yo, she's got something.

That lady's scary. She's a dominant. Yeah, she's going to be a dominant champ. She's just a scary person. She went down to the range in Texas, and the guys who run the range were like, the way that lady shoots, she shoots like a fucking special ops soldier. We haven't seen someone come in here and shoot that good unless they're a SEAL or a competitive shooter.

Oh, my God. She's a fucking straight up killer all around so i'm gonna stop talking shit about her dancing yeah they're like you gotta see her groups like the groups she was like pistol groups like everything's in the heart like she's she's she's a special hard lady you should take her hunting with you oh she probably would fucking jump on something's back and strangle it. Kick a wolf in the head. She's a hard lady. But it's people like that that make the rest of the division rise up, right? Remember when Anderson Silva was just dominating everybody in 185?

And it was like, who the fuck could beat that guy? It took someone like that to be that unstoppable force at the top of the mountain that made all the rest of the division rise up. And then as Anderson got a little older and those guys got better and Chris Wyman wound up beating them, and then the division comes alive. Just got mixed up. Yeah. It's exciting again. Now it's just chaos. Robert Whitaker and now Adesanya.

Yeah. Yoel Romero's going to fight Adesanya in a couple of weeks. I can't wait. Woo! Like, let me hurry up and get my fight out the way so I can, like, be a fan again, you know? That fight's crazy. Yeah.

Oh, the dance off was so sick. I know. Like, right in front of Dana does a backflip and almost kicks Dana in the head. Yeah. I'm like, I don't even think Dana saw what happened right there. Like, how close is, like... You can see on his face. Like, they did it in slow motion you can see

his face like yoel had already flipped and then he's like yeah he just probably saw a foot out of his peripheral like what is happening yoel is such a freak he's insane that's another thing that gives me because i like i've always been self-conscious about my age too like i think that's started later yeah because i started at uh 24 and i used to call it my like quarter life crisis thing the fact that i just like started fighting out of nowhere but um but yeah i've always been a little self-conscious especially because like a lot of times like uh the ufc will hype up like a young fighter like she's only 18 youngest fighter on the card and then like i'll see someone like um alex chamber fight and they go the oldest fighter on the card it's just like why you gotta

put her out there like that so i'm always like i've always been a little self-conscious like man like i feel like i have an expiration date but then the long the more i pay attention the more i realize that a lot of the fighters i do look up to are like my age or older. So, yeah, I stopped looking at it that way. I started looking at it more like my body age is still very young. Yeah, you didn't take any abuse up until the time you were 24. You didn't do any training at all. Yeah, yeah.

So I was all mushy and ready to be molded into a fighter. Like all my ligaments were intact and stuff. I think it's really a matter of how much time are you doing it for because i think randy couture didn't even have his first pro fight until i think he was 34 or 35 oh yeah yeah i mean he went go on to win the light heavyweight title the heavyweight title and all that stuff like was into his 40s yeah and then dan henderson still knocking people out of like usc like what was it 199 you know he's gonna have a text to see if this is still happening dan henderson was supposed to have a bare knuckle boxing fight

against chuck against chuck goodell exactly oh no oh no why i don't know i guess money yeah well yeah that's the only reason why i mean money but also like there is part of me that's like i wonder how i do in a bare knuckle fight you know like there's always like i always want to do that left way have you ever seen that left way kickboxing i always thought that'd be really cool because like punching without gloves on like for me i'm like that's stupid i'm gonna break my hand but like kicking without oh that's fine well you're already fighting i mean i'm already doing that you know like just kicking being able to kick like through their hand into their head like i feel like that would be a lot of fun and then there's headbutts too yeah that's why they can do everything yeah it's like i already get headbutted when i when i fight might as well make it legal you know use it i mean

it is an effective technique particularly if you're in someone's guard you know if you're on top and you're holding on to their biceps you could smash them in the face oh nice i mean that's what mark coleman used to do good would he just be I sneezed? It's like, how do you get away with that? No, it was legal in the day. Oh, it was legal. That was one of Mark Coleman's big weapons. Damn. Mark Coleman, back in the bare knuckle days, he would take guys down.

He would hold, it didn't matter if you were in the guard or not, he'd smash his fucking forehead right in your nose and then start punching you and beat the shit out of you. Oh, man. And, you know, he was a gorilla back then. Mark Coleman, when he was the heavyweight champ, was like 265 on all the Mexican supplements. And he was just holding people down. The whole, like, critical thing. And he was an elite wrestler. I mean, he had both things going on.

Like, serious wrestling skill, huge power, and no drug testing. Yeah. And headbutts and bare knuckles oh my god that's everything but the fuck out of you oh my god i'm surprised he didn't kill anyone well it's one of the things that made maurice smith's victory over him even more impressive because that was during the headbutt days and maurice figured out maurice was one of the first guys that figured out how important cardio is maurice had crazy cardio so. So he would be able to survive the early onslaught. He had good defense on the ground, would protect himself.

And then once the fight got into the later rounds, he started leg kicking the fuck out of Mark Coleman. I'll never forget that. Because that was the early days of fighting when everybody thought that Maurice was going to get smashed. Everybody thought that. Damn, I don't know Maurice Smith. He's great.

Great guy. He was an elite kickboxer. The thing about Maurice, he was a world champion kickboxer. His kickboxing was at a way higher level than anybody had ever seen. He was the first guy to knock out Conan Silvera. Do you remember those days? I wasn't watching back then. I didn't come in until I was about to do it.

Really? Yeah, maybe after a couple Muay Thai fights, I was like, oh, let me start watching this MMA thing. But yeah, everything that I've seen is YouTube from back in the day. Oh, yeah. Well, the good news is you got a lot of fights you could watch. Yeah, for sure. I started going back to UFC 1, and I'd watch the full fight card, and I'm just like, holy shit, this is insane. It is crazy.

I feel like I remember watching it with my brothers at some point, and somebody goes, man, this shit's gay. Turn that channel. I never sat and watched it until once I started doing martial arts. What's crazy is how much things have changed since 1993. Yeah. When people first saw Hoist Gracie choking people off his back, and they're like, what is happening? No one knew anything. Now, any little kid knows what a triangle choke is.

Yeah, yeah. It's nuts. Kids in school, they know what arm bars are. They know what rear naked chokes are. Everybody it fucking mcgregor is yeah they know like they do the dance yeah yeah it's crazy it's weird like people are famous now yeah yeah i remember i went on did you remember there was a show called the best damn sports show period it was like an old school sports show nah this is This is like 2000 something, like early 2000. I went on the show.

It was like Tom Arnold and I forget all the people that were on it. But anyway, I was telling them, like, I go, this sport's going to be huge. I go, it's the most exciting sport in the world, and I think it's going to be as big as any other professional sport. They were just laughing in my face. They're like, wah. I like you. They're like, what are you talking about? Cage fighting? There's no fucking way that's ever going to be popular.

What's up, Jamie? The account that announced this back in September, the Henderson-Liddell fight, is a parody account that people didn't catch on to. Oh. Not really. Meanwhile, it still could happen. Yeah. Don't kid yourself.

Hex and Lombard Fought last night Or Saturday night Yeah that's the most Recent event they had Oh yeah Yeah he won I thought about Watching that

It was weird I only watched The ones that Beck's on Beck Rollins Oh right right right Yeah yeah But I think She's a champ right

Yeah yeah Bare knuckle champ Yeah she was Killing in there She came to Train with us Again she Was one of the First people who were at Alliance, one of the first girls.

So that was one of the reasons I went out there. How did you wind up getting into Alliance? Were you in New York? I was in New York. Then I was in North Carolina, and then that stopped working out. A bunch of weird stuff happened. So I had to find a gym that was good for me, but also had girls like,

like the thing that I was saying about like training with women, it's like after the Tisha Torres fight, I was just like, yeah, I was underestimating how strong this girl could be. Was that the one in Mexico? It was in Mexico city. I was there for that fight.

I remember these girls like that is crazy altitude. Yeah. It's like 7,000 feet above sea level. I was there for that fight. I remember these girls like, that is crazy altitude. Yeah. It's like 7,000 feet above sea level. I was not prepared. I get tired just walking up the stairs to go take a leak. I'm like, this is fucking high altitude. And I did the exact opposite of what you were supposed to do. So it was like, you either show up a month early or two days before you fight.

And I showed up 10 days before I fought i was like oh i acclimated in 10 days and it was like that was like right at the peak of like when you really start feeling that altitude sickness so i was messed up from the altitude i was sick from the uh i forget what they call it the month of montezuma's revengevenge. Montezuma's Revenge, yeah. I was sick from that. I was sick from the altitude. Oh, my God. I was at weight the entire fucking 10 days, literally walking at 115. And you can see it in my fight pictures, too. I look sunken out like my old Muay Thai photos.

Well, you guys both were like you were stuck in the mud because the altitude was so high. That's crazy to have fights i was so pissed because like right before we fought uh or when we uh weighed in and did our little face off tisha's like hey let's make some money tomorrow and i was like oh yeah all right let's go let's go i'm like yeah we're gonna fucking stand and bang everyone's gonna be excited we're in mexico de la boxa we're just gonna hit each other And then she fucking takes it out And I'm like Fuck you Like I'm I'm like on the ground

And fucking like Fucking What do you call it Half guard And I'm just pissed I'm like Come on man Like just

Just fucking do something At least you know But yeah She hustled me man She hustled me That's what Rumble Johnson Did to Dan Hardy Back when Rumble used to fight

At 170 Which is still hard to believe I back when Rumble used to fight at 170, which is still hard to believe. I still have no idea how the fuck he made 170. Didn't he only make it like once? He made it a few times. Oh, man. That's so crazy. He made it a few times.

I mean, he won tough at 170. Wow. Yeah. So if he can make 170, I could probably make 105. Well, he can't make it anymore. He got big. He's a heavyweight now. Dude, I saw-

He's going to come back and fight heavyweight in the UFC. I saw him once in person, and his hand was about like two or three of my hands taped together. He's just huge. He's massive. I felt like I could crawl into it. Yeah, he's huge. I forget where we were, but he was in between fights and he was 230 pounds and i saw him i go what the fuck do you weigh and he started laughing he goes i'm about

230 oh no how are you going to make 170 oh my god and then he had a hard time making 185 remember he fought vitor at 185 and he barely made i I don't think he made 185. Yeah, yeah. And then the UFC cut him and he went to the PFL, back when it was the PFL, and he went, what was it, World Series of Fighting back then? Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, it was World Series of Fighting. And then he fought Andrzej Arlovski at heavyweight and fucked Arlovski up at heavyweight. I was like, this is crazy.

This guy was a 170-pound tough champion. Yeah, yeah. That's so nuts. And I think he's going to probably come back at heavyweight, apparently. Is he going to come back to MMA? He says he's coming back. He got bored. I know he was thinking of doing bare knuckle as well.

Well, if they're offering a lot of money. I was just like, fuck, I feel bad for whoever's on the other end of that fucking huge fist. Yeah, I just think of those like, oh my God. He's got some lunchbox fists. Yeah, I would. He hits so hard. I'm sure no one signed that contract. That's probably the reason it never happened.

People are like, what? Yeah, I still remember the sound that it made when he fought Cormier. Oh, yeah. When he head kicked him? It was a punch. Well, he hit him with a punch too, but he head kicked him,

smacked him in the face with a head kick. Oh, well, I just remember kicked him? It was a punch. Well, he hit him with a punch, too, but he head kicked him. Smacked him in the face with a head kick. Oh, well, I just remember the punch. It was like... Oh, that's right. The first right hand. Yeah, and he lost the fight. I think he smothered him. Yeah, Cormier beat him both times.

Yeah, yeah. But it was that first punch. I was just like, holy shit. And we're all amazed. You just heard that crack, and we're all amazed that Corm, Cormier was able to just, like, fucking walk through it, you know? Like, shook it off. But, yeah, that, yeah. I always remember that.

Well, when he knocked out Glover with one punch, I was like, holy shit. That uppercut. He's got freak power. Oh, the big one. Yeah, the pitchers were crazy. The Minotauro fight, too. Knocked him out with one punch. He was a freak, man.

He's a real freak. I'm interested to see if he does do, I mean, he was burnt out, he said. He's like, I don't want to do this anymore. And then he took some time off, and then he started feeling it again. Yeah. And now he's training with Henry Hooft. He's hitting pads. He said he's going to give himself like six months to really get in shape and really train hard and get back to it.

That's awesome. But he said he might fight a 205 too. I mean, look, at 205, there's John Jones, and now there's Dominic Reyes, and then Jan Blachowicz, who just knocked out Corey. I mean, there's a lot of moving pieces. Right, right. And that guy fits right in there. I mean, anybody who stands in front of him might go night-night.

Yeah. Anybody. Yeah. I'd like to see that. I like him. I'd like to who stands in front of him might go night-night. Anybody. I'd like to see that. I like him. I'd like to see him. I like Anthony as a person. He's just exciting as a fighter, too. His style is so crazy. Like, you know someone's going to sleep.

But he can take it, too. I mean, he's got a giant fucking jaw. Everything about him is huge. Big-ass head, yeah. Yeah, physical freaks. It's a great time in the sport, though. There's so many exciting possible matchups. What are you pumped for?

Like when you look at the UFC. Like the straw weights? Everything. Or just everyone? Well, the straw weights, you have to be paying attention to the title fight next month. Yeah, no, I'm definitely paying attention to that. Were you surprised when you watched Weili and Jessica Andrade? Not really.

The thing is, I was catching Andrade when she would run in, and it wasn't until the third round that I decided to use elbows, and I'm pretty sure I dropped her in the third round that i decided to uh use elbows and i i'm pretty sure i dropped her in the third round and she popped right back up but like ever since then i noticed that like she would get hit like she would get hit and rock like in the in the taurus fight like tisha isn't known for having like knockout power crazy hands but she dropped her like a good like two or three times in the in the torres fight um so i could see that that chin was getting touched well you remember the you want to fight she just she ate a fuckload of shots in that fight yeah but it didn't look like she was

getting wobbled no as much no um but maybe she did because like when she came back and fought Tisha, she was going wobbly-legged every now and then. Then eventually she closed the distance and took her down. But it's like she sacrifices her chin to get that distance. And same thing with the Rose fight. She was getting picked apart the entire time, sacrificing her head to get in and get the throw or whatever and then finally like you know it gave out on her in the way of leaf fight so i wasn't like super surprised i was i mean everyone was surprised so i won't say that but i did see

that coming eventually like i'm like eventually someone's gonna put her out just because it's not just the person's power that she's fighting but it's her pressure is so aggressive and she's coming in so hard so it's like her force versus the other person's punch when they connect like she's knocking herself out essentially yeah so um so yeah like i wasn't super surprised and like that was that was what my what i thought would happen when I fought her. I didn't go into that fight thinking, oh man, this is going to suck. I was like, dude, I can catch her. She drops her hands when she comes forward. I can strike going backwards. I know I'm going to catch her and I can put her out because of the way she strikes so i've always seen that her hands were a bit sloppy even though she's super aggressive and the fact that she's so aggressive gives her that much success like you you can't ignore the fact that she's punching you as much as she is but it's still like very offensive and like with zero defense in mind so so yeah i wasn't like super surprised when someone finally did drop her but you know i i hadn't really seen that much of uh willie zhang so

so i was surprised that she was able to get the title that that fast have you ever seen her strength and conditioning routine that she does no i haven't fucking ferocious that lady goes hard yeah she goes hard it's pretty wild it's pretty wild to watch it's very inspiring how do you feel like she matches up with joanna because that fight is real that's real soon um i i think it's gonna be uh i think it's gonna be an even match i think uh she has a lot of output i think she isn't afraid to go to the ground um i saw that and when she fought tisha um they had like a lot of output i think she isn't afraid to go to the ground um i saw that and when she fought tisha um they had like a lot of crazy scrambles she had good reverses for like tisha's takedown attempts and stuff and um and yeah i just think it's gonna be like she's gonna force joanna to

move and to react more than most people i think like. Like as long as she's, like I haven't really seen, I haven't really paid attention to like how much head movement she has, but I do know that she just throws a lot of volume and wherever the fight goes, she seems comfortable. So I've never seen her in a spot where she looks like, oh, what do I do here? You know, like you see people freaking out against the cage or freaking out when they get taken down and she seems to flow she has that athletic flow through

everything so that's the one thing i think she has uh going for her but i do think joanna's reach is what's made her so dominant she's a big old girl like uh watching her fight and draw there was a moment where like she's pushing pushing Andrade up against the cage. And she looks like a big old praying mantis. You know, just biting someone's head off. Andrade looks like this little thing. So she's a big girl with really long reach, really long legs and everything. I'm kind of surprised to see her back at 115 because she really struggled.

Dude, I was too. Well, I was going to try like fill in that last minute uh i don't know if you you heard but it like kind of uh upped my like i don't know like props or whatever when she was about to fight michelle there were rumors that she wasn't going to make weight and so people were scrambling and then my manager what yeah i think i could talk about that my manager hopefully fingers crossed my manager got the call like hey um hey man i'm just worried about this joanna fight and my manager was like well i bet angela would take it if you guys wanted to fight. And he's like, seriously? And he's like, yeah, she's crazy. And I was there cornering my teammate, Lauren Mueller, at the time.

So I was there chilling. Where were we? Atlanta, I think. Maybe. I forget where it was. It might have been Atlanta. But I was there chilling, cornering my friend. And then my manager calls. And he's like, hey. was it might have been atlanta but i was there chilling cornering my friend and um and then

my manager calls and he's like hey and it was like that time of the night that you know it's a fight offer so he was like hey what time is that what time it was like it was like maybe 11 ish or something weird yeah yeah it was like 11 p.m and i was like who and he's like he's like would you fight ilana at 125 and i was like fuck yeah and i was like i was probably walking about 125 at the moment like and if they i think we were talking back or he was talking back and forth and he was like well what about michelle at 115 he just wanted to know uh just so he can relay the message I was like yeah just let me know so I can like cut weight or not cut weight you know so I was sitting waiting for waiting for the call and then the rumors got like blasted and then people knew my name was in it for

some reason I was just like who is talking you know but like it went viral and I was and I just leaned into it I was like hey anytime anyplace let's go and I just leaned into it. I was like, hey, anytime, anyplace, let's go. And I waited, waited, and then, yeah, nothing happened. Joanna made weight. I was like, damn. Yeah, I heard that she wasn't making weight either. Yeah, yeah, everyone was talking about it. And then somehow somebody knew that my name was in the mix.

Like, Angela Hill might fill in for Michelle instead of fill in for Joanna. Because she was, like, the name that they were promoting for the fight. So they wanted the former champ to get her fight. So they were like, all right, if it comes down to it, Angela will fight her at 125. So I was pretty stoked. I mean, I feel like Joanna does a lot of things. And it's similar with my matchup that I have now, only she's a lot bigger. Joanna does a lot of things that I've seen a lot of, you know, in training.

Just like in my first years of Muay Thai, like she has a very conventional style when it comes to Muay Thai. She's just very good at it. So a fight with Joanna is always something that I've wanted to have just because I felt like it would be something that I've seen before. It'd be like, I'm not gonna be, you know, I'm not gonna be afraid of the clinch, you know,

which she's really good at. I'm not gonna be afraid of the clinch. I'm not gonna be afraid of when an elbow's gonna come because I've elbow sparred like my entire fight career so it's like it's like things that i see with her are less scary than a fight with someone that she's beat before like androd or or uh gadelia or someone like that so we're going to learn about her a lot this coming fight like what she's got left yeah because that the transition 25 didn't really work out like shevchenko was just a little too much for shevchenko had already beat her outside the ufc

and then beat her again and then it just didn't look like she had the firepower to keep her off her at 125 and then so she goes down to 15 again but we know how hard it was for her to make 15 and that's one of the things that they had said her camp had said about her chin when um when she fought rose like she just couldn't take a shot it was because she was so depleted yeah yeah so we'll find out because wayley hits fucking hard yeah yeah and she's like i don't know the you know i was so determined like i feel like she'd kill herself to make weight you know like she's just that kind of fighter though yeah you know the long combat sports career when you know and at a certain point in time you gotta wonder like when that catches up to you or you know one of the things that she was saying that she was in a real bad relationship and there was a giant distraction and now she's done with that and that was a

contributing factor to a lot of her losses so we're gonna find out because you know when you go back to like when she fought Jessica Panay, she was the scariest woman alive. Like she was fucking ferocious. Yeah. When she was the champ and she was lighting everybody on fire, she was terrifying.

Yeah. She was so aggressive and so technical. Yeah. She got that long jab. She also had a lot of fighters who weren't that technically sound and striking

or at least not confident when they're striking. Yeah. You know, so when she did fight someone who was good, who was actually a better striker than her and Rose, like the fact that, just the fact that Rose could move laterally, you know, like Joanna was always like a back and forth fighter because that's like her style of very Muay Thai. And Rose just moving to the side every now and then or having head movement.

I think that really fucked her up. And like, it's hard when you, when you fight someone like that for the first time, or even spar someone like that for the first time, you can't find them, you know, all your punches miss,

you gas out, you freaking out because you're missing your punches. Then you're getting countered. And it's like a lot to deal with for a straightforward Muay Thai fighter. That is a weird thing about Muay Thai, right? Yeah, it's back, forward, and back. Because we don't have footwork. We just stand and bang.

We're only a bitch who would run away from a fight. But some people do have footwork, like San Chai. San Chai's got crazy footwork. San Chai is the only one. He's so good though. He can do like fucking cartwheel kicks and shit. Sanchai can do everything. But he's so good you would think that someone else would mimic that style.

It's one of those styles that are just so hard to mimic. And the sport traditionally is not his style. He's very unorthodox so look at any unorthodox fighter you're not gonna see a million dominant crews like copycats coming out you know you see like one or two they try yeah they try but they're never gonna be dumb you know so uh so yeah senchai is like that kind of fighter whereas like he was brought in doing this like very like kind of i wouldn't say still but just very like predictable style and he just made it weird and made it his own that's why he's so cool

always toes oh yeah yeah just always does the alley shuffle never flat-footed no no never and like he always he always knows how to pull you He can pull the counters out. So he knows exactly how to twitch in order to make you go, oh, and then boom. It could be a foot. It could be, I don't know, a hand. It could be anything because he just comes from all angles. He also throws a head kick when he's two inches away from you. Yeah.

He'd do wild shit. He basically throws a head kick straight up's two inches away from you. Yeah. He'd do wild shit. He basically throws a head kick straight up in the air. Yeah, yeah. He does a lot of wild stuff. He's nuts. He'd do the weird karate, like, pop, pop, pop, you know, when they just jump back and forth. And then he'll fake one, and then he'll do the cartwheel kick. And he's close to 40 now.

Yeah, yeah. That's a crazy thing. Which is amazing for a lighter weight yeah for a tie fighter yeah like that's like you start at like six out there you know well i think that style has preserved him in a lot of ways that footwork and movement style because he's not he's not just catching and returning and standing in front like a lot of those guys do right he's always very elusive right there's not a lot of those guys do. Right. He's always very elusive. Right.

There's not a lot of those. Lurdzil is pretty elusive, but there's not a lot of really elusive guys in Muay Thai. Bull call is just like kind of a march him down and hit him type of fighter. Just left kick the fuck out of you. Boom. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think that's one thing I really credit going to Alliance with is just my movement

has gotten way more fluid. Eric Del Fierro is one of the most unheralded guys. Yeah. For whatever reason, people don't sing his praises, but he's excellent. It's kind of like the theme of the gym. I feel like everyone who comes out of there

is like no one's talking. No one gives Jeremy the credit that he deserves. No one gives Dom the credit they deserve. I mean, I mean I guess I guess I'm a little more sensitive because I know them now and I'm like man those guys are great but but yeah Eric definitely like no one ever talks about him but he's so good at what he does his corner work is so excellent yeah like he gives you like real technical information in the corner and he knows how to break it down quickly like

this is what you're doing wrong this is what you have to do right this is what you're doing great keep doing more of this look out for that when you do this do that yeah and he gives you all that shit you see people go okay okay okay like some people like you need to take them out you need to take them out like oh never saw that it's kind of like you know eric's kind of a psychopath of that shit like like he's like he's, like, no emotion. You know, it really takes a lot to draw emotion out of him. And then you feel proud of yourself. You're like, oh, I got on your skin, you little softy.

But, yeah, he's definitely, like, he's very stoic when it comes to that stuff, which makes the instruction more clear. Yes. You know, like, there's yes you know like there's no like there's no anxiety in his voice there's no freaking out he's just like

do this do this do this that was a good round you might have lost that round you know like he'll just give it to you straight up and say it quickly enough

so that you can be like okay what next and yes it's always been like really chill when he's cornered me it's interesting because he doesn't try to get any attention. No, he hates it.

He runs from the camera. He's so weird. Good for him. Yeah, it's pretty cool though. I mean, that's what attracted me to the gym because you see a lot of people trying to big themselves up or name drop or do this and that. themselves up you know or name drop or do this and that and even if the person like even if it's merited like they've proven themselves the fact that they have to i don't know convince you always makes you feel like they're trying to hustle you yes you know so like they need too much they're too needy yeah yeah yeah so when i came to alliance i was like uh yeah would it be okay if i train

here because there were already like a few straw weights there. And I didn't want to like, you know, come stomping in on territory and being like, I train here now. And he's like, yeah, you know, if you want to train here, train here. Ten percent after your fight, you know, no contracts or anything. Just like if you end up not liking it here, you know, just you can go somewhere else. Like there's no obligations and i was just like oh that's cool because i had just like come from a place where i had to sign a contract saying i trained there for this many years or however many fights i have and like

it's just such a strange thing it is strange because it goes sideways and then you're locked up in a contract that's hard to get out of it and they want money if you even have another trainer or they think they can like have a lawsuit against you even though it has even though there's like zero that zero things that like actually hold you to that contract because like it was badly worded or something but like they'll still try and it'll be an annoying thing to and luckily i was able to like uh part ways in in a good way you know i just i just paid my coach and it was like i need to go somewhere where i have more training partners and this and that and he was like yeah that's fine so luckily it was chill but like i've heard horror stories i've heard horror stories i've heard a lot of horror stories so like when when he said that i i was immediately like oh that's cool like and that's how um that's how

my coach my first coach in new york was too he's like hey you know hey if you need to go somewhere to learn how to do mma like that's cool i'm not no hard feelings brandon vera still at alliance he is not training there But he's still like part owner He still like comes through when he is in San Diego Where's he training now? He's in Philippines now Oh so he trains in the Philippines too

He lives there and trains there Yeah yeah Wow Yeah what a crazy career shift he's had huh? I know All saying he's one heavyweight champion I know He's out there doing it One is. He's out there doing it.

One is nuts. He's out there doing it. I'm like, damn, can I say I'm like Blasian or something? Can y'all get me in there? It's interesting, right? Yeah. If you're a Filipino and you fight for one, like, woo. Yeah, they love you.

Especially as a heavyweight. Uh-huh. Big, giant Filipino. Dude, he's doing it. He's like in movies out there and stuff. Really? I don't know which ones i think i watched part of it but yeah he's he's like living it up you know well he's so

fucking big too yeah you know he's like 240 something now yeah yeah it's not it's not to see him he's huge i like watching him like do pads like they have to bring out the big pad holder whatever for sure bag and he kicks the bag and it's like a big ass heavy bag but it's still like folds in half when he kicks it like yeah he's he's sick but yeah he's he's like uh yeah he's he showed us some like cool clench stuff and like cool techniques when he comes through and and he like he likes to motivate the like up-and-comers when he comes through too so it's always like he was a small light heavyweight early in the day well actually he was a small

heavyweight remember when he knocked out frank mear this back when he was training with rob cayman oh okay yeah i mean he he was fucking people up at heavyweight and he was like 210 215 yeah he's just really fucking tall yeah he wasn't like well you'd look at him he didn't look like a heavyweight yeah yeah you know yeah it's interesting to see a company like one explode and get bigger and then see guys like mighty mouse and eddie alvarez and you know see like world-class fighters go over there yeah i was sad to see mighty mouse go though that was he was another one of my motivators. Like, man, I want to be like that guy.

I was sad to see him go in a way, but happy because I knew he was getting paid. Yeah. They wanted him over there, and it was a big get because, look, for my money, he's still the best example of a mixed martial arts fighter I've ever seen. The full package. You could say John eclipsed him as the GOAT, and I think he did, because John has beaten better fighters. He's beaten the best of the best.

I mean, Mighty Mouse knocked out Benavidez. He's beaten good fighters, don't get me wrong. He definitely fucked up Cejudo in the first round in their first fight. But he didn't have the same pool of talent that Jon Jones had to go through. Guys like Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans, Rampage Jackson, go down the line. Everyone he fought is a fucking killer. Since the time he knocks out Shogun Hua at 23 years old to win the title.

And since then, for the last nine years, he's stormed through everyone they put in front of him. That's the GOAT. goat i mean it's hard to argue with that just the level of talent but when you look at what mighty mouse was able to do to people when he's able to do the wilson hayes what he's able to do to a lot of guys who are good fighters yeah he makes them look like you have no business being in there with him yeah he's doing a whole different thing than you're doing you're you think he's there and he's here and you think he's here and he's there and then you're getting hit and you're getting punched and you're getting taken down and you think you're gonna get hit right right he just

could do everything yeah that's the thing that makes him so crazy is that he can do everything in the book yeah he's not a striker you don't have to just worry about one thing how about ray borg how about when he suplexes him and then catches him with an armbar on the way down that's the one i was thinking of yeah i wasn't sure who it was but it was like what the fuck catches him on the way down like a fucking movie yeah yeah in a world title fight defending his title no that was nuts something real special. And I felt like that put him on such a crazy level of expertise when he did that one. Wasn't that the one before he got released? I feel like that was his last fight. The Cejudo fight was his last fight.

Well, no, I mean the one before he lost. That was the one before he lost against Cejudo, I think. I think you're right. So it's almost like they were like well there's nothing else we could do with you like obviously you're gonna do that to everyone else the future of that division was uncertain right they weren't they weren't even sure what they were going to do with the division once the hudo won and then now that so hudo went up and he beat uh marlon morais for the bantamweight title, and then they have this situation where they're going to have

Figueiredo and Benavidez fight for the flyweight title, so Suhudo abandons that title. And Mighty Mouse did the right thing. He got big money over there. They paid him a lot of money to fight in one-offs, and they give him hard fights too because they don't have hydration over there either, or or dehydration so they you you fight at what you weigh which i think really is what we should be doing yeah and i don't think mighty mouse was ever cutting weight

yeah he was always like just walking around that way yeah yeah i mean he may be like 135 but it's not like he's not cutting anything like substantial and when he was fighting at 35 when there was no 125, everybody was just so much bigger than him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We still have that picture in the gym of Dom Suplex. Yeah. He was so much smaller than Dom.

Oh, for everybody else. I'm glad you went to the flyweight. Well, I mean, he's spectacular over there. He's doing really well. And they've got fucking killers over there, too. Like that guy that knocked out Eddie Alvarez, Timothy Natsukun. That guy's a fucking savage. He's scary.

Yeah, yeah. Just because you haven't heard of them doesn't mean they haven't been training for 10, 15 years and have all these fights over there waiting. Waiting for this opportunity. I feel like there's going to come a point in time where there's gonna have to be Some sort of a unification fight Whether it's a Bellator unification fight Because I still think That Diego Lima

He's the one that I look at And I go That guy I think is He's elite at 170 Like he might be as good As anybody alive at 170 I'd like to see him And there was a funny face off

With him and Kamaru Usman Oh yeah I saw that In Houston Yeah I mean I don't know if that's something the UFC would ever do,

but fuck if I ran the UFC, that would do what I want to do. It really should happen. Yeah, it really should happen. I mean, they have like female flyweights too. Yes. That could be a thing,

you know, like put in two title fights there and there you go. That would be fun. Do it in Hawaii. It would have to be if I want a vacation yeah you know how max has been uh campaigning max oh yeah like ufc hawaii and then bellator did it

just like as a fuck you well if max has a rematch against um alexander volkanovski that would be a good place to do it you know but? Hell yeah. But the thing in Hawaii, the big place is outdoor. And you never know in Hawaii if it's going to rain. Yeah. Especially like a destination like that. It's probably going to rain for like 20 minutes. Yeah. Like right before you start the title fight and then stop raining.

Well, if they could just put some kind of a cover over just the octagon, maybe they could actually do it. I don't know. But I just feel like these other organizations, whether it's ONE or Bellator, they're getting to this point where you might see it. And then Rory McDonald just went to the PFL. Oh. He went, yeah. That is what they're calling it, right?

It used to be the World Series of Fighting. Now it's the PFL, right? Yeah, the Million Dollar Tournament. Yeah, that thing. Yeah, Rory just went over to that cool which i was pretty shocked because he went to bellator i was shocked that and then he won the title at bellator and then he went over to the pfl i wonder why he did that i'm sure they just offered him a big check yeah we had a guy uh won the million dollar tournament

this year oh really yeah miliano sorted oh okay right yeah yeah he won they gave away like six different million dollar tournaments right yeah that's crazy i'm like where is this money coming i know how are we gonna do that cash them checks yeah but that's the thing that something like one fc or pfl they kind of have to do that if they want to bring over a guy like eddie alvarez or mighty, you got to come with the big money. And they have it. They sell out giant places over there. Are they doing that?

What is the name of the big one in Japan? Saitama Arena. Oh, Saitama Super Arena. Are they doing that? Yeah, yeah. Are they doing it like places like that? I don't know. They do it in Singapore. I know they're doing this in pretty big places. They haven't been to Japan yet, have they? places like that i don't know they do they do it in

singapore i know they're doing oh they haven't been to japan yet have they i don't think so i don't know i don't know yeah i don't know i'm fascinated though i'm i really like when there's competition i like when something rises like my one of my saddest moments in mma is that fedor in his prime never fought in the ufc when k Kane was in his prime and Fedor was in his prime, God damn, that would have been glorious. To see those two go at it, that would have been amazing. That's the thing about MMA is that these organizations are, it's the UFC really and then there's everybody else.

The UFC is the top of the food chain and everybody else is trying real hard and every now and then someone will like a douglas lima or a fade or where they'll get to a point where you're like huh i want to see that guy fight against the best in the ufc i want to see what's up well they kind of do it with uh bellator and ryzen like they've started mixing like uh they had a darian caldwell fight Horiguchi. Right. And that was like, I don't know, that was just like a really big deal. I feel like anytime you have the two, it's kind of like team fights, you know? Anytime you have that happening, it's just, I don't know, it just makes things more interesting. I think so. I totally agree.

I'd be down for that. It's just someone has to rise. Someone has to become this undeniable force where everybody's clamoring for the fight and then the ufc will go listen there's a lot of money in this let's do it yeah but right now that hasn't happened bellator has never really gained the sort of notoriety that the ufc has like if you were fighting in bellator you know like you people some people would know who you are but it'd probably be like less than half the people. Right. You know, it's like, it's just a, it's like the NFL or, you know, Q-tips,

you know, versus cotton swabs. You know, everybody wants Q-tips. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's the brand name. Yeah. And if you look at the sheer number of fighters that are elite in the UFC,

it's undoubtedly the best fighters in the world. But then there's a few. There's a few of those Bellator fighters that really fucking stand out. And there's a few of those one fighters that really stand out. And you go, hmm, I don't know.

They might be able to hang with anybody in the world. Yeah, it's just going to take time. You know, like the more they pay people,

the more they start paying out as well as the UFC, the more you're going to get those talented people to go there instead of, you know,

holding out for a spot in the contender series and then once that like changing of the guard happens a couple times then you'll definitely see it you know and then it'll probably be like undeniable at that point but i don't know probably i don't know i don't know if it's going to happen anytime soon well listen angela i'm happy we got you in here i'm very excited for your fight this weekend. Tell me your opponent's name again. Do you not remember her name? I'm like, that's Thai girl.

Loma Lukbumi. Whoa. Yes. That's a beautiful name. Very Thai. So I'm excited for your fight. Thank you. And I'm just happy to have you in here.

Yeah, thanks, man. I'm a fan. And so just good luck this weekend and uh let's make it happen cool i love it thank you very much thanks for being here thank you and good luck on your flight too thanks a lot bye everybody