The Sevan Podcast - #160 - Amanda Leve

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

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Where are you? I'm from Philly, so I'm in Philly right now. Awesome. So it's 10 a.m. for you. Yep.illy. So I'm in Philly right now. Awesome. So it's 10 a.m. for you. Yep. Sweet. It's early for you, right? Yeah, 7 a.m.

Okay, guys, I'm getting off this Instagram Live. I will talk to you guys later. Sorry I have to keep doing it on this account. Bye-bye. Yeah, Amanda Levy yep I jumped on the bandwagon we know we know it's okay it's okay you gotta jump on the bandwagon

at some point I might be late to the game but at least I'm on the wagon now yeah exactly welcome thank you thank you thank you thank you the guy you're seeing pop up at the bottom right now this is Matt Souza he's the executive producer no one can see him live, but they can hear him. And as we talk about stuff, he'll try to pull up copyrighted footage of you doing stuff so people can see who you are. So I don't know if you can, I don't know if you'll see it in real time, but the viewers will see it on the live show and then they'll also see it on the recording. Okay.

How old are you amanda i'm 24 i um my my whole thing is is somehow i just got into mma just like watching it maybe i don't know five ten years ago and i shouldn't even say mma i got into just watching the ufc right and then a couple three years ago my boys started doing jujitsu and they've been doing it. I have three little boys and they've been doing it five days a week for, let's say, three years. And so then slowly I just started getting more and more into MMA and jujitsu and started figuring out what it is. And then I have this podcast that's mostly, it started off me just leveraging my recognition in the CrossFit community. I worked for CrossFit Inc. for 15 years as an executive over there.

But really, I just want to interview people that I want to talk to. And bam. I'm honored to be here. I slid into your DMs and you responded. And that day, I told all the parents at my kids' Jiu-Jitsu class, I have a man to leave me on. And they all know who you are. I'm the only parent who doesn't do Jiu-Jitsu.

Where were you born? I was born in Philly. So born and raised in Philly. I've been to a lot of different jujitsu schools. I've been training for 13 years. So I started when I was 11. And it's so cool to hear that you have your kids in jujitsu because I am like the biggest advocate for like growing up in jujitsu. up in jiu-jitsu like I was so blessed to be able to experience growing up in jiu-jitsu because I feel like it just gave me such a wide variety of like meeting people and like talking to people

and you're just exposed to like so much outside of your own community like I feel like you know um I was born in northeast Philly which is very majority irish catholics so like i remember being like younger and being shocked that some people didn't believe in god like you know what i mean so like it just like opened my whole world up um to like outside the outside world yeah that's awesome i love that that was a great example um you gave i like to remind people constantly on this show that i would never ever in my entire life ever believe in God because I feel like it would interfere with my opportunity to know God. There you go. I don't want anything to interrupt in that.

I want to be completely open-minded. Tell me more reasons why you like jiu-jitsu for kids. The self-defense aspect, I think, is just like a given. like jiu-jitsu for kids um the self-defense aspect i think is just like a given um i think being a kid and knowing how to stand up to someone and not having to use like actual punches like just being able to take someone down and control them until like a teacher comes over stuff like that is just so beneficial to to kids um and i think the for me it was a lot of like therapy like getting out of like the real world. So my parents went through a horrible divorce when I was younger.

But being on the mats with all the adults, and I was the only kid in the adult class, but being on the mats constantly around all these great adults that treated me like I was their little sister and took care of me. And it was such a blessing. Are you an only child? No, I have an older sister and a younger brother. My younger brother does train. So he started before me, actually.

He was eight and then he dropped out of it. And he didn't start back up until he was like 16, where I started when I was 11 and just kept going until now. And do you guys still, do you still live at home? Yes, I do. And you live with your, does your brother live with you? Um, so my brother lives with my dad. I'm, I'm with my mom and my sister. Okay. Um, are you close with your brother? Yeah, we're really close. Like we travel everywhere together. He's like my best friend. My older sister's my best friend. And then my younger brother's my best friend. And then they hate each other. I think it's like the age gap.

Like I'm the middle child, so I just get along with both of them where like they have a bigger age gap. So I think it's harder for them to like connect. They love each other, but they love-hate relationship. I understand. And so your brother looks up to you. Yeah. He loves you to pieces. Yeah, he does.

That's so awesome. There's nothing there's nothing better than family. It's cool being able to share a sport with him, too. You know, being able to, like, support each other and, you know, competitions. Like, I think I get more nervous for when he competes and when I compete. Like when he had his MMA fight, I was like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm so nervous. It's not that I don't have faith in him. It's just I get so nervous, like, for him. I don't know. It's weird. Yeah. Um, my son just told me this, he did his third tournament this weekend. And I said, he said, you know, I shake before I go on. And I said,

you shake before you go on. He goes, yeah, the whole time, right before I step out onto the mat, I shake. I go, so you're shaking when you, when you're actually out there, he goes, no, no, it stops as soon as you go out there. And it kind of made me feel good. Cause the whole time he's out there, I want to throw up, but I feel so selfish. Cause I'm like, I'm not doing anything. I'm just, I'm just standing here with a coffee in my hand. Yeah. My dad would always tell me how nervous he got, but he always played it cool. I would, and he didn't know jujitsu, so he didn't do jujitsu. And then, um, I had like a lot of coaches that want to come to competitions. So, um, I would just he didn't know jiu-jitsu so he didn't do jiu-jitsu and then um I had like a lot of

coaches that want to come to competitions so um I would just tell him to yell the time to me because I didn't want him coaching me and then telling me something wrong right right myself I've uh I've done that I've yelled at my kid to stand up and then his jiu-jitsu coach being like hey no he shouldn't stand up and i'm like what do you know i don't know shit so i'm like what do you mean the guy's on top of him of course he should stand up he's like no no you don't know shut the fuck up the coach say that again you roll around with them at home at oh the kids yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but i just i and i can already tell that they're uh my oldest just turned seven. And like I just use brute force and toss him around.

But I can already tell by the time he's nine I'm fucked. It's going to be bad. Same with tennis. He plays tennis five days a week more or less. But all three of them and I can already tell. Like my – that's just me smashing the ball and hitting as hard as I can at them. That's not going to – Tennis is a cool sport.

I had a girl in high school who was like like ranked in like pennsylvania for tennis but tennis is a badass sport it's cool so i do i do skateboard do you skateboard no i don't i feel like a lot of people in the jiu-jitsu community either like surf or skateboard and i'm just i don't think i have the balance for it i want to try surfing, but skateboarding was never in my range there. I couldn't fight. I couldn't skateboard. I couldn't dance.

I couldn't do shit. I was the guy who got picked after the girls started getting picked in high school, like all the boys who get picked on some of the best girls. And then I would get picked. I was one of those dudes. So my kids are doing all the shit. They're going to learn how to fight. They're going to learn how to dance. There you go.

Hell yeah. Yeah. Okay. So at 11 years old, you start jujitsu. Tell me what you were doing before then. How old were you when your parents got a divorce? 12. Okay.

So you'd already had jujitsu to kind of lean on and that family to kind of lean on. Yeah. So before I did jujitsu, I was just like an athletic kid. I would do like push-ups and sit-ups while we were watching TV, like, for no reason. And then I think they brought my brother first to try it, and they saw them doing push-ups and stuff. My dad was like, oh, my God, Amanda would be perfect for this. And I did my first class, and I, like, just stuck with it ever since. But I played, like, softball, basketball.

Those were the only two sports that I played before, like grappling. And then once I started jujitsu, I would do like on and off. I did like striking. Like sometimes I do boxing, kickboxing, but it was never consistent. Like jujitsu has always been. Like jujitsu I've constantly did for those 13 years. It's all I did. Or like kickboxing

and boxing was just on and off and when you say on and off what do you mean like one day a week every week or you do like a month of it yeah so I would do like a couple months of it or maybe like a year of it and then I would take be like a year off and then I would go back to like I would find a boxing gym I would do it for like a year and a half and then I'd be off like stuff like that do you remember the first time you competed like not in jujitsu, but just competed period like in softball or basketball? Um, I remember in T-ball, my, my dad like loves this story. Um, but in T-ball, I started getting annoyed. I didn't want to go anymore because the, they would always say it was a tie and I wanted to know who was winning.

So that was like the start of it. I remember like telling my dad, like, I don't want to go. Cause it's always a tie. How old were you? I was probably like six, seven. Do you remember that feeling? I guess. What was it about the tie you didn't like? Do you remember that? I just, I just remember being frustrated. Like I just wanted to know like if I want

like, like, I knew I think realistically that you couldn't tie every time. And I noticed it the first couple games. And then afterwards, I'm like, I want to know who won. Did I win? So I've always been a competitive person to, like even when we were younger playing like, you know, and stuff like that, like I hate it losing. I still hate losing. Um, but, um, I remember my first time competing in jujitsu. That was like clear as day because I lost in 15 seconds and wanted to go home and I was crying hysterically.

And that was at, was that at 11? Yeah, it was 11. So my dad threw me in a tournament like four months in the training. So I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. My gi was like 500 times my size. Yeah. I've seen that. I've seen that.

When I go to tournaments, you see the kids and you're like with the gis that go beyond their feet. You're like, oh, man. Yeah. I'm like, dad, why did you let me go out like this? And so, yeah. So I like lost in 15 seconds i cried wanted to go home and my dad was like please just stay for one more just one more one more match and i was like okay i did one more match and i won and then that was it i'm like oh i love this feeling this is gonna be it and then i just constantly competed for the last 13 years i i took when i took my son to his

first tournament he'd already been training for two years it was just like three or four months ago he was six and um it was in stockton do you know stockton california um is it where's that out and like that's where the diaz brothers are from okay it's it's inland it's by sacramento okay okay it's it's pretty it's a it's hardcore it's, I imagine it to be like a small version of Philly. Yeah, I got you. And, um, so the, the competition there was fierce. The kids were just, it was nuts. And he got, he got, he got beat up pretty good and I didn't think he was ever going to want to do it again. And then I took him to the next tournament and he won one

and lost one. And then I took him to one last week and a couple days ago and he just mopped everyone up yeah and san jose i was like oh and someone told me that you need practice at tournaments yeah i was literally going to say that i think it's all about matter of just getting used to competing um especially for like kids like just getting used to going out there and and feeling what it feels like to um being able to like handle like the adrenaline and the nerves and everything that you have all bottled up. And it really is crazy, like your son was saying, how everything just kind of stops when you're out there. It almost feels like the whole world just shuts off and you're just in front of that person and just you and that person. The whole world just stops.

Are you a big social media person? Do you spend time on social media? I hate social media now that my like instagram blew up everyone's like you gotta push your brand you gotta push brand i'm like do i really um it just it's not that i i feel like it's useful for some things and i love being able to like communicate with people when i need them it's like having everyone's cell phone number you just literally message anyone um but I just hate that like if I start I just feel like fake almost posting stuff all the time because that's not me so that's why I like it everyone when everyone was like push your ransom like I can't because I'll feel fake like I I try to do like a

on the Instagram story like oh ask me questions and then oh I saw that I saw that do like on the Instagram story, like, oh, ask me questions. Oh, I saw that. I saw that. I'm like, I feel so fake. But that's good. See that. But that. So I'll tell you.

So about a year ago, I started going live on Instagram and I fucking hated it. I'm like, I feel so fake. Why am I doing this? Is this like begging for attention? I encourage you to fake it till you make it. And what you did is perfect. You posted it, ask me anything. And then you're like, hey, this is fake. Those are all legitimate posts. Yeah, that's it. You're doing it. Do you know what I mean? Just every time, you know what I mean? Just keep calling yourself out. Like, like if that's going to be your shtick, then just run with it. But you, I think you'll learn to, in an era where so many people are talking

about how bad social media is social media needs someone like you like it's like don't get the um unfortunately um and i don't think this will happen to you the girl you went against gabby um gabby garcia if you go to her social media you'll see it seems like she's been sucked up into the game. As long as you don't get sucked up into the game, and I don't mean that as a dig at her. I don't know. Maybe she didn't. Maybe that's really who she is.

But her social media, she seems like she got sucked up into the game. But I loved it when you said that. Hey, I tried this shit. Fuck this. I'm not ready for this yet. I mean, that's it. People are just looking for the next authentic person. Do you watch any of the Daisy Fresh guys?

Oh, yeah. We got to meet them when we were down there. They're so awesome. Yeah, and that's it. While I was doing a podcast with Heath, the guys are just walking in the background, interrupting the podcast, poking their heads. And I'm like, yeah, this is the way it should be. Yeah, it's awesome. So basketball and softball, did you like them?

I loved softball. I didn't like basketball. But softball, like if I didn't find jiu-jitsu, I probably would have just like continued like a hardcore softball career and probably would have went to college for softball. What position did you play? So in grade school i pitched so my dad was like big on putting us into pressure positions and i think that's probably why he loves jiu-jitsu so much was because it's only you um i mean it is your

team too but when it comes to like competition time it's only you uh so i pitched and then in high school i played like center field why do you think he liked putting you in pressure did you know why he wanted to do that to you he well do you know what too i think it was probably for his entertainment too you know softball just gets so boring um but he always took pride in the fact that we were able to handle like tough positions like that, like where you're like the whole game's kind of relying on you. So I think he, like he,

he, my dad's like a competitive person too, even though he wasn't really like athletic as a kid. Um, and I think that might be why too. Um, but he just, you mean that he wants,

he didn't same reason I'm doing it. We were schleps and now we want our, we don't want our kids to be schleps. Yeah, probably. Yeah. I mean, I get it. Yeah. My dad was like a hardcore, like dad coach.

Like, you know, so like, I'll give you an example. In grade school, I was like in eighth grade and we were in the championship for a softball game or whatever. And we came in second and he wasn't even mad at me because i he's like you played a great game and then he we were walking off with like the second place trophies and he told me to throw out my trophy in front of the whole team and the parents and i literally threw out the trophy and everyone was going to get pizza after and he goes nope we're going home let's go we. We went home. Everyone got pizza. We went home. Um, when I was playing softball one time, I like missed, uh, like, uh, I guess, like, I don't even know what it was. I

don't really remember it. I think I blocked it out because I was so embarrassed, but he was like, Amanda, what are you waiting for? Santa Claus all the way. Yeah. Um, so I know a lot of people like are like super against like parents being so hardcore but i know for a fact that i would not be where i am today if my dad wasn't the way he was tell me about this throwing away the trophy thing with a little more detail so each kid got their own trophy or yeah so we each got like a second place trophy um and when we were coming off the field he was just like trash we don't accept second place that's what that's where i did threw it right in the trash did you cry no no i i was used to and i i was mad too i'm i'm a competitive person i didn't want second place so to me like even when i got like second place

um medals and stuff and even if i fought like a great fight my dad would tell me to keep the medal like if i fought hard and it was a great match he'd be like no keep that you you earned that that that second place medal um or but if i but i wouldn't want to keep it because i'd be like i don't want to i don't want a silver place medal like i want gold right um but yeah so like i would throw out my trip my um medals if there was only two people in the bracket and i automatically got second that was going in the trash um so it was just like a matter of like we don't accept second place i was talking with someone just the other day about this i had this other podcast i don't know

if it's still going or not everyone always asks me but it was with a guy named matt fraser and he won the crossfit games five times in a row and he has a story that he tells that um he one of the years he took second place and he hated it i mean he was so fucking angry and then it ended up and he wanted to throw it away i think that's how the story goes and then then he ended up deciding, no, I'm going to hang that up as a reminder that I never want this thing. And he said it ended up becoming his favorite medal because it was the one to remind him always, hey, do you want second place again? Do you want to rest right now? Do you want to stop training? Yeah, it's pretty cool, right? Yeah, that's a pretty badass mentality. And he's pretty, as I interview more and more of you guys,

you guys all have these kind of what seem to non-champions as crazy stories. Like, yeah, of course it seems like a crazy story that your dad's telling you to throw away your trophy in front of the whole team. And there's all these people out there who are going to judge it. But look at you now. Like if I told you that every time I make banana bread, I hold the bowl over my head and spin around 30 times, people might make fun of me. But if I keep winning every banana bread competition in the world and it's the greatest banana

bread ever, it's like, Hey, fuck you. Yep. Right. It's like, this is how you bake a champion. You got to add this. You got to add this. There's like, there has to be that story where like, yeah, you had the dad who was like too hard on you and if you don't have that you're not going to the top yep and i think that was like uh i had a good balance because my dad was like that and then

my mom was super like oh my baby yeah the perfect balance um yeah that's good you had the nurture yeah yeah exactly so um and um like i said even if i if i lost but i had a great match and i fought my heart out it was it was it was a good my dad was proud as hell so like it wasn't like a a crazy instance where he would be like even if i lost anything he would be like angry or anything like that it was, um, it was just a good way, a good way of like parenting me. I think. Did you want to make him proud? Absolutely. Um, I think some kids though can be pushed like that and other kids can't. And I don't think every kid could be pushed like that. Um,

I think some kids might like break underneath that kind of pressure and just not want to do the sport anymore where it kind of like drove me to just want to do it more. Thrive. Yeah. Tell me about the intimacy of jujitsu for kids. I give you two things to kind of get the ball rolling. One, my kids don't go to school. They did homeschooling and then I don't even know what they do now.

They're enrolled in a school. But I don't put masks on my kids ever, ever, ever. I don't let my kids do Zoom classes. My kids won't do any of that shit. They're four and six. They're going to have a normal life as long as they can. And other parents are like, well, hey, don't – and now other parents are saying to me, hey, aren't you concerned about your kids not being socialized properly? And then I show them pictures of the kids being 10 feet away wearing the mask.

I'm like, no, I think if they don't get that, they'll be fine. Yeah, I know. I think it's insane. Actually, it's hard when I go on planes and see little two-year-olds with masks on. I'm like, oh, my God. It's abusive. It's complete – it's complete fucking insanity. I'm going to go off on a little tangent here i just heard yesterday one of these fucking idiots that was on like one of these john stewart shows or colbert

shows or whatever those shows are that never prove a point and just make fun of things they were talking about how children are getting sick at four times the rate as they were before and it's more important than ever that kids wear masks. And I'm thinking to myself, first of all, when you use math like that and you say four times the rate, you're saying that there were four kids sick last year and now there are 16? Like those are still minuscule numbers, and you know that. So you're just manipulating the public, you assholes. And two, if everyone knows that childhood diabetes has doubled, but if they're telling us it's doubled, you know it's quadrupled. And there's nothing more dangerous for a child than to have type 2 diabetes.

Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. No cancer, no nothing. You are ruining that kid's life by making obese kids. Anyway, I'm done with that. So back to intimacy of – intimacy of jiu-jitsu. So I explained to this parent. I said, hey, my kids have been doing jiu-jitsu for the last three years with the same 10 to 20 kids.

I can't think of any greater socialization. This shit is so intimate. And when I put Avi in jiu-jitsu, it was three days a week. And the first three months, he would only do the warm-up. He wouldn't do any of the technique. So then I would just be like, okay, you don't have to do the technique, but just sit on the mat, right? And I would ask him, why don't you want to do the technique? He's like, because I don't want anyone touching me.

And I would be like, yeah, I totally get it. I don't want any of those kids or that strange sweaty coach touching me either. And then after three months, Garth Taylor walked up to him. That's the guy who owns the gym, Garth Taylor Jiu-jitsu in santa cruz california and he says hey avi did you know batman does jiu-jitsu bam right on and now it's been now i cannot believe how he touches these boys and girls like they come to class they hug they put their arms between each other's legs they lift each other up they have their hands all over each other's backs necks chest they grabbed a sweaty man the sweaty female just it's nuts yeah i'm just like how are you so comfortable with your body yeah so um that's why i think i think it's so much

easier for kids to start it than adults because i remember being a kid and i had like no inkling of like what it was like to touch like where like touch someone somewhere and be like, oh, like, oh, is that OK? We're like as an adult. I think you're way more cautious of everything you're doing. Yeah. Is this OK? Like I really shouldn't be doing this. But as a kid, you're just like, oh, screw it. I'm here. I'm here. This this. You weren't worried at 11? No, I wasn't. Shockingly, I wasn't. I don't know.

I don't know why. I think it was just getting used to. I think my first class, it was like a little like uncomfortable. And then after that, it was like smooth sailing. But I remember when I got to like sixth and seventh grade that I was like, I didn't even tell anyone in my school that I did Jiu Jitsu. So like Jiu Jitsu 13 years ago really wasn't popular at all like it's way more mainstream now than it ever was um so you told people what jiu-jitsu was they would they would be like oh it's karate and you'd be like no it's not karate um and I just remember like not telling anyone because I'm like

oh man all these kids are gonna think I'm so weird that I like do something so like touchy. And then when I was in high school, everyone found out because I wanted to join the wrestling team. But I went to a Catholic high school and they got it my junior year of high school. And they told me I couldn't because I'm a girl and I couldn't on the boys' wrestling team because girls and boys couldn't wrestle with each other. It was their thing. So I, like, pushed it for a little bit, but then kind of, like, backed off because I'm like, I do jiu-jitsu every single day anyway.

It's not that big of a deal. I just wanted to kind of make the point out. I was on, like, a couple news stations and everything. But, yeah, so I just think it's way easier for a kid to start learning jiu-jitsu than it is an adult i'd say that adult an adult camp but just like the whole the whole touchy-feely stuff like when you're a kid it's just like that whatever um and it's just like almost like as a kid it feels like so natural i feel like for a kid to just like be like rolling and wrestling around

with another kid um it's almost like primitive or something like it just feels good after you're done it's gotta feel good yeah so why did there's two subjects i want to touch on touch on about that high school experience about trying to get on the wrestling team but tell me um how did you find it if it wasn't mainstream when you were 11 okay so my dad um watched ufc and yeah so him and my uncle were, like, fascinated by the whole, like, jiu-jitsu aspect of it. And then they found a school that did, like, MMA. But then they had the jiu-jitsu kids program,

and that's when they threw us in. Do you remember your first instructor? Yes. His name was Jeff Cressman. Is he still around he is um he i think he teaches at like a very small school or like he runs a class out of like his house or something um but i do i he'll like comment on my stuff and when i see him at tournaments like we'll talk and stuff um i was i'm really lucky to have had so many great instructors. So I first started off at Dattis Fight Camps when I was 11.

And then I went to Team Balance, which is like a little more known in the Jiu Jitsu community. That's like the Megalurys Brothers. And then they had, their affiliate school was a cousin named Frankie and Briefy, who was like a second dad to me. So nice. was her cousin named Frankie and briefie who was like a second dad to me. So nice. Um, and then I went to Henry Gracie PA and then I went to this small school called paper street,

but on your Jiu Jitsu where I probably learned most of my Jiu Jitsu under Jason Frawley. Um, like all my Jiu Jitsu today, I owe to him, um, like the back takes and everything like that. Um,

which, which, which was your kind of your bread and butter which kind of catapulted you into stardom this past week yeah so literally everything i basically did this weekend i um learned a lot from him um so that was i was with him from like 13 till like 16 and i think it's probably where my jiu-jitsu got the best um and then after that i went to ricardo almeida's and then um now i'm at a place called precision um and i'm just i'm just really lucky to have had such great instructors um when were you at the place called dante riviera oh so that he was an affiliate school of Ricardo. So I

would just go there for MMA. And then when I fought MMA, I just used his school as my school for, uh, okay. There's a guy who trains there and his name is the Mexicutioner. Oh, really? That's a pretty bad. That is right. When I was researching you, they were talking about the guys who fight under that school. And there was the guy named the Mexicutioner. I I was researching you, they were talking about the guys who fight under that school. And there was a guy named the Mexicutioner. I was like, wow. I hope he's Mexican. If he's not Mexican, it's racist.

It's racist. But if he's Mexican, it's okay. We were talking about where you went to school. Damn, I lost my train of thought. There's something I wanted to ask you about. Train and wrestling team? Frawley. Yes, I want to go back to that, but I want to ask you about Frawley the Choke.

Oh, okay. For those of you who don't know, who is this girl that's on Sevan's podcast right now? Is she the next great CrossFit champion? No, better than that. This past week, Amanda Levy. Am I pronouncing your name right? It's Levy, but everyone says Levy, so I just kind of go with it. I understand when your name's Sevan, you're used to that kind of stuff. Amanda Levy. Am I pronouncing your name right? It's Levy, but everyone says Levy, so I just kind of go with it. I understand when your name's Seval and you're used to that kind of stuff.

Amanda Levy. This past weekend, it's something called WNO, and that stands for Who's Number One? Yep. The WNO Championship. It was the first one ever, right? Yeah, it was. They did a great job with the production of everything, too. And great prize money. Holy shit. it's an invite only tournament amanda was invited there where she tangled with

what is arguably and i think most people would agree the greatest uh female uh champion of all time and there was an incredible size difference and the lady's name was uh gabby garcia she got like a half million followers on instagram she's looks like you know one of those people that's like you're like okay that's the eighth wonder of the world and uh eventually we will get to that match and what it was like getting in the ring with her I also noticed um were you the smallest girl in that tournament in that bracket um I think I was one of the smaller girls uh i think a lot of us played around the same so i weighed in at 159 um she makes me look like i'm like 125 right but uh yeah so a lot of us were in the 150s and i think like someone was maybe in the 180s the the the other girl you the who won the tournament i watched your match against her

and she i she was 25 pounds heavier than you yeah yeah i think she was like uh probably like 180 or higher yeah and and when i say 25 heavier than you of muscle she didn't look like she had an ounce of fat on her she's like a rock yeah she's um she's built very like thick is that crazy when you engage someone for the first time like you get in there and then you first you put your arms around her and your brain like is like okay like your brain starts sending messages of evaluation to your body and you're like hey shut the fuck up because it's like impressed by the other person's body like you grab her and you're like what the fuck is this yeah it's like the strength you usually pick up on right away like oh shit they're strong

yeah yeah it's it's like that uh when i used to film the crossfit games like and i would like pat one of the guys on the back and they don't even feel human yeah like literally you're like dunk dunk dunk and it's like what that's not flesh yep yeah it's some weird shit um so you are you're you're you're doing jiu-jitsu and are jiu-jitsu and wrestling similar like what makes you think if you're're doing jiu-jitsu and are jiu-jitsu and wrestling similar like what makes you think if you're on the jiu-jitsu team that you for if you're doing jiu-jitsu from the age of 11 that you can just step onto the boys wrestling team at 15 at your high school or 16 um so they just were they just happened to get it at when i was a junior when i was 15 or 16

okay so i was like okay cool i want to join the wrestling team. Like it just, it'll be great experience for my jujitsu. I wasn't even looking at it for like a long-term jujitsu, like wrestling thing. I just wanted to learn it to help my jujitsu out. Um, but yeah, so wrestling and jujitsu are very different. And I didn't start realizing this until I dated my boyfriend. I'd started, I've been dating my boyfriend for almost three years now, but he was a wrestler, so he started wrestling at four years old. Wow. The mentality that wrestlers have versus jiu-jitsu people is literally night and day. Jiu-jitsu people are so lazy, and then wrestlers are just so hard-nosed to the grind.

They embrace the struggle to no end. They try to break each other mentally. It is so different, like two totally different worlds. embrace the struggle to like no end they like try to break each other mentally it is like so different like two totally different worlds um like their grit that they have wrestlers have is like insane i'm not saying that jiu-jitsu people don't have that but you're saying culturally it's not it's not it's steeped in wrestling yeah and then jiu-jitsu it's it's more like hey let's roll and then go to the beach yeah so like jiu-jitsu is more like oh okay like yeah you want to try jujitsu like yeah sure just use for everyone that's like the new like phrase i think is like you get just for everyone um and we're wrestling it's like oh you

don't like this then leave like it's not it's not for everyone which i kind of wish that like at some point jujitsu would be more a little more like hard-nosed because i think jujitsu is getting watered down a bit from um like being so inclusive um not that it's a bad thing it's a good thing that you get to use like inclusive stuff i just think it's like the mentality is just a little different than it was maybe like 10 years ago when i was a kid okay so yours it wasn't always like that. No. It was closer to wrestling, and now as it becomes more mainstream and there's more family

gyms, you're saying it's kind of lost a little bit of its edge. I think so, at least on the East Coast, from what I'm seeing on the East Coast. I think that it's just getting almost like wooded down a little bit compared to where wrestling is just always hard for. As soon as you're done watching this or pause this now, go uh, compared to like, we're like wrestling is just always a card for. Go.

As soon as you're done watching this or pause this now, go to YouTube flow. Grappling was nice enough to make it for free on YouTube and type in Amanda Levy. I said it right, right? Yep. Amanda Levy, just like it sounds Amanda L E V a,

and then you'll start seeing her matches. And once you start, it'll be hard to stop. And one of the reasons why, and I'd had no idea that this existed she does a lot of mixed matches too and they have millions of views millions no exaggeration here of her going against um uh dudes people with penises and they're in tournament settings and they are really really impressive matches and you might start watching them because

of that reason like i did but three seconds in you will only watch them for the athletic prowess she doesn't go against anyone easy there is uh it's it's legit um hardcore combat jiu-jitsu it's dope um okay so so tell me about so you're you're in you're sitting in english class and the teacher says hey guys so you know, we bring wrestling to the school this year if you want to sign up. And you just start walking over there after class? Like did you know it was going to be controversial? Tell me what was going through your head. I didn't know it was going to be controversial because someone I knew that was joining the wrestling team said something like, oh, they're not going to let girls join.

You know why? Because – so the archdiocese of philadelphia we have what is that that's like one of the dudes who's like closer to god than you like in the chain basically okay okay um so the archdiocese of philadelphia so they like look over all the catholic schools in the philadelphia area um so there's all boy schools all girl schools and there's co-ed school so my my school is a co-ed school um but there's a father judge school that's what it's called father judge it's an all boy school and they've had wrestling in there for years but they never had it in the co-ed school so they just started getting it in the co-ed school and they said you're not gonna be able

to wrestle because when boys from father judge get put up against a girl from a public school like in in meets the the archdiocese makes the boy forfeit okay so just so you're going for the state championship and you have to fight a girl from a public school they would make the boy forfeit um so i was like oh my that's stupid but whatever because i grew up like all those matches that you saw is me going against boys because there's no girls for me to go against you go to tournaments now you see a ton of girls ton my kids class is like at least half girls yeah when i was a kid there was literally no girls ever like there was maybe like a handful of us and we'd go against each other all the time or most of the time I was and then I started getting bigger than all the

girls those girls are still way the same I just grew um and I had to start going against boys um so I think that was beneficial beneficial to me too I think that's what also helped me you know get better like dealing with like the strength that guys had when I was like a teenager and having to fight with that I think has definitely helped me you know in my jiu-jitsu career now but then I was walking to lunch and they had to sign up table for the wrestling team and the coach was there and I was like oh I want to sign up he's like you can't and I'm like why and he was like the archdiocese isn't going to let me sign you up because you're a girl. So I went over to like the athletic director's office and he wasn't in. And then I told, I told my dad or whatever, and I forget how it unfolded from there. And then,

um, we ended up contacting the news and then they ended up doing a story on me. up contacting the news and then they ended up doing a story on me and when they asked for a like uh like a statement from the archdiocese they made it sound so sexist it was so terrible it was like we cheat we teach gender differences um whatever i don't even know i don't forget what their statement was and uh then i was on like a couple other news stations and it was cool because my whole high school was like super supportive and then they found out that i did like jiu-jitsu so everyone was like looking up all my youtube videos like oh my god you're such a badass and stuff like that so like there was like a hashtag like let levy wrestle um so it was cool that they were like so supportive and then you would catch wind of like teachers saying like oh she shouldn't be able to

wrestle then you hear other like other teachers would come up to me and be like i hope you win i hope you you're able to get on the wrestling team um so it was just like a cool experience to like kind of navigate through um but yeah so in the end i just ended up giving up on it i probably i'm pretty sure i could have sued them because if you get any type of government funding you have to follow title nine which says that basically you have to let me wrestle like you can't discriminate against sex uh but yeah so i just ended up like dropping it and just doing jiu-jitsu i'm glad you said that you can't discriminate against sex and you didn't say i can't discriminate against gender so many people don't know the difference between sex and gender. And it's,

it's insane. Even, even the smartest people in the room use the word gender wrong. It's like, stop using that word. Stop using that word. You don't even know what it means. It's sex,

penis, vagina. Yep. Uh, and, and, um, so,

but where you said you have a boyfriend now, three years and he's in, he wrestles. Yep. And just to give a timeline for said you have a boyfriend now of three years and he wrestles? Yep. And just to give a timeline for people, she's 24 now. So that story she told about high school happened eight years ago. Going back to the intimacy thing, in all of these matches that I'm watching you with the boys, I don't know what it's called but when my kids are doing um jiu-jitsu there's a ton of time where you're in like um closed guard when they have their legs wrapped around you right you're in between someone's legs and they start with their hands on the other person's

chest where girls boobs are and and like they're six years old and that's how they start they'll be like okay start in that position that's like a constant thing like when you're on top put your hands right away on the person's chest so as i'm watching all these matches with you against these guys i never see them do that to you yeah so i mean they put their they go like this on your shoulders they grab your shoulders i see guys like grab your fucking rib cage with their hands yeah but i never see a dude just post up right on your boobs and are they like avoiding that or well so technically you want to keep your hands like on their hips because if your if your hands are too extended you get you can get arm barred so it leaves you very vulnerable to stuff so you don't want to the rule is technically

you don't want to go past the belly button okay so um so there's that reason and then probably they might have been uncomfortable um especially if they never rolled with a girl before um i know uh i know like sometimes they like i would hear they would just get like annoyed that i was like in their division or whatever but there are no other no other girls there for me to to compete against so it was kind of like either i'm in this division or i'm not competing i don't blame them for being annoyed. They have to get over it. Change is hard, man. Change is fucking hard.

I don't blame the guy getting up there and being like, fuck this. He's scared. He didn't want to go against a girl. No, I don't blame him either. It's foreign. It's foreign. But that doesn't mean you don't got to get over it. You got to get over it.

Like, hey, it's just get over it. I would never compete against men. You know what I mean? Like, I would never go and try to sign up for a men's division. It's just I know realistically that I wouldn't be able to. I mean, like, I'm sure I could beat some guys. But, like, if I was to go into a brown belt division, guy division, or a black belt division, guy division, like,

they should mop the floor with me. Like, realistically, if they're a legit brown or black belt. I mean, I always say this too, like. By the way, you guys, she's being very humble. If you go watch her videos, no, no, no one wants to go against her. I don't give a fuck what belt they are. If you're her weight class, you do not want to go against her. I always say like when a new guy comes in and like I beat them up,

I always tell them, I'm like, I'm beating you up now because I'm not comes in and like i beat them up i always tell them i'm like i'm beating you up now because i'm not gonna be able to beat you up in like two years oh that's nice that's nice of you man you're sweet you don't have to do that oh so so and i do and i would see that too in some of your matches and maybe i'm just projecting but i would see guys i don't want to say take it easy on you but they almost seem like they're a little more careful where they're putting their hands. And then 30 seconds into it, they realize they're in for the fucking fight of their life and they're like, fuck this. And they kind of like beat a sweat stripping off them and then it's all go. Yeah.

Yeah, so – Do those guys know – like how does a guy – go ahead. Go ahead. Finish that thought. I won't forget my question. I'm actually like friends with some of them that i used to uh compete against um that so that's pretty cool now that i'm like friends with them now but yeah a lot of them i competed against so i'll see them at tournaments or something i'll say hi to them um it's really cool actually to watch other people

like accomplishing things that you used to go against in tournaments too um yeah because not everyone stays with the sport. You know, a lot of people, like life gets in the way and a lot of people drop out of the sport. And it's just cool to see people that actually have stuck with it like you and seeing them accomplish stuff is pretty neat. Yeah. I already, this last six months, you know,

we just started going to tournaments and we've been to three already. And it's really cool seeing the same parents, same kids. Yep. I can see that, yeah, in 10 years it's going to be even mean even more. I haven't exchanged contacts with one of the parents this time. Yeah. Did you like some training and stuff or just the – He has a six-year-old girl and my son went against her.

And they were in the same class. It's the second time they've met up. And I just – he's so sweet, and I feel like I'm sweet to his kid, and I just like, okay, I want to have this guy's contact. He lives probably like 70 miles from me. I don't know what the intention was, but I just wanted to like have the option, right? Maybe, yeah, as they get older, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. When you – so tell me how that works in mixed competitions do the do the guy is it do the guys like at my kids age they're just mixed just because they're

all mixed but like how do you end up going against you're at a competition setting how do you end up going against a man uh well so yeah so i never you're 18, you go against women or men. So 17, 16, 15, all the way down, you're going against either a girl or a boy. So they usually separate girls and boys division, but then there was never any girls for me, like in that, you know, they separate it by weight, age, and then skill level. So there was never any girls in like my weight or age and the advanced division so i would always have to just be put in the boys division because that was that so there weren't even other girls in it no yeah so like i said like when i tell you you go to tournaments now

and you see like all these little girls it's absolutely insane like i can't even believe it because when i was a kid there was no girls in the division, in like the divisions. Like you would get, you would see girls and then they would, they'd be gone like the next, the next tournament. You know, they would never stick around. Like there was like three of us that were like, uh, that were girls that were, were dedicated and would be at competitions all the time. Um, but they were a lot smaller than me too. So it was Daniel Kelly.

Who's still in the game now. She's still in big in jujitsu. She was on who's number smaller than me, too. So it was Daniel Kelly who's still in the game now. She's still big in jiu-jitsu. She was on Who's Number One with me. She was in the 115 division. So she just never grew. She was little all the time. And then there was this other girl that we used to always have to go against, too. And there was literally only three of us in that circuit, really.

And then, you know, they would always end up going against each other. And then I would always have to go against the boys cause I was, I weighed more. Can you make 135? I made 135 one time and I will never do it again. I hated it. It was so dry. It was terrible. So if you, if you fight MMA, if you continue fighting MMA, you'll go 145. Yeah. So I'm signed with the PFL right now and they only have a 155 women's division so um which is nice because i could just literally eat clean and be at 156 easy where i did fight at 145 and that was an easy weight cut for me so i if i left the PFL, I would start at 145. PFL is professional fight league. Yep.

So you would going back to the tournaments, you would go to a tournament and they would be like, Hey, there's no women. We're going to sign you up for the men. And then they would be like, how much do you weigh? And you'd be like 140. What belt are you? You would say whatever blue. And then they'd say, okay.

And then you would be in there against dudes who are 140 blue belts. Yeah. Yep. Oh shit. Yeah. so it was up until i was 17 so if i mean i started doing the women's division so my dad was a psycho when i told him with divisions so he would sign me up for my regular division right so my age weight and skill level and then he would put me in the weight class above me. And then he would put me in the age bracket above me. And then he would put me in the age and the weight class above me. And then he put me in the women's division. So I would do like nine divisions.

Most kids do two divisions. Their gi division and their no-gi division. I would do like nine divisions and get like 13 matches in a tournament and i would literally just get done one match get up they would be calling my name at two other mats and i would go the next mat get up go right to the next one no you shouldn't have told me that my poor kids you shouldn't have told me my poor kids it's for those of you who are don't know how crazy that is my kids signed signed up for no-gi and gi. And the gi competition, there were tons of kids. And no-gi, there's like – most parents only take their kids there for two matches, one division.

And I signed my kid up for two divisions, and it was already like they had to mix age groups and weight groups because there were so few kids who would do no-gi. So it's nuts that you would do that so if when amanda says she goes up a weight division that means there's also going to be people up there who are it's going to be broader than the weight division she was even in sometimes man and would you would you clean up would you win all the matches sometimes not i mean not all of them but there was a lot of boys that would give me a hard hard time but um i did relatively good the one time i did had like 13 matches and i won like 11 um i it was it was so beneficial and then everyone knew who i was because they would just see this like i wore like this hot pink rash guard and they would just see

this girl just going from one to the next to the next to the next and then the one time um there um, there was a tournament and I got my ass handed to me all day. Just blue loss after loss after loss. And I, to the point where they called me for like this, my last match. And it was against a girl, my age in, in the key.

And I was, the ref like looked at my dad and was like, are you going to make her do this one too? Cause I was, I looked dead. And my dad was like, she can do whatever she wants. And then he walks away and he's the ref looks at me. He's like, so you're going to do it.

I'm like, yeah. And then I ended up like, I don't, I want to say break the girl's arm, but I ended up popping the girl's arm in an arm bar after that. And that was my first win of the day after just getting my ass handed to me. So yeah, that's one of my favorite stories too. It's just like it was so funny because i remember i would just did not want to do it and my dad goes she can do whatever she wants i'm like uh like leave it like leave it to you yeah pressure on

you yeah good so and then i ended up doing it i ended up ended up winning um for those of you who don't know gi is like the outfits you see, like the guys wearing in Karate Kid. It's like the pants and the, and the jacket. And, uh, and no Gi is, is basically you're just in a, like a surfer's long sleeve shirt and a pair of like booty shorts. Right. Or like leggings, like really tight. Yeah. Um, it's interesting that he said that, that makes me feel better because I take my kids to the tournament and the whole time at all three tournaments, my son's like, hey, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I'm like, yeah, no problem. No problem. Yeah. Like, you don't – like, he wants – I feel like he wants me to take the responsibility off him.

Like, he wants me to either make a force him or say he doesn't have to do it. And I'm like, fuck that. I'm not doing either. I'm just going to keep walking him to the mat. And if he doesn't want to do it, that's cool. Like I told him, and I tell him, I'm like, hey, if you end up not doing it, the Legos I bought you at home for your reward, it's still there. It's all up to you. But I have to get you dressed and I have to bring – and so then he finishes the gi.

He goes, hey, I am not doing no gi. And I'm like, yeah, no problem. And he's like, why are you getting me dressed? I'm like, just in case. And then they call his name and I walk over there and he goes, I'm not going to do it. And then he goes out there and he wins. And he's all excited because are you getting me dressed? I'm like, just in case. And then they call his name and I walk over there and he goes, I'm not going to do it. And then he goes out there and he wins. And he's all excited because he got his medals and shit. But I never tell him.

It's just like what your dad said. I'm going to be there and I'll be proud of me if he told the ref, if he bowed out and said I'm not going to do it, I would be totally fine with that. But I'm not going to take responsibility for that. That's all. It's all on you. He asked me the other day why – or he didn't ask me why he shakes. He told me he shakes before he gets on. And I explained it to him like this.

I said, hey, I think what that is is fight or flight. And most people choose to flee. And there's nothing wrong with fleeing. But you're retraining yourself to fight. Is there any truth in that? Like I just made that up on the fly for him. No. So I actually started with up on the fly for him. No. So I actually started with like a mindset coach.

All this. Oh, awesome. Congratulations. Who's that? His name is Mike Moore. It's called wrestling mindset. Okay. And basically it's about like handling how to compete.

I'm going to have him on. that okay if i if i steal stealing for an hour from you okay cool um so his whole thing is like retraining your thoughts and navigating through your bad thoughts so like when you want to give up and you're like uh i don't want to do this or just re-looking at how you compete like instead of competing like oh i have to do this it's like oh i want to do this i'm excited to do this i can't wait to go out there and showcase my skill um and like that kind of that difference and um especially when i got to like a higher level i feel like i was just like so nervous to lose where now i'm just excited to be able to go out there and compete um and i'm in such a better headspace completely um because

of it uh so i just feel like i'm a whole different fighter just because of working with him for like since august i started working with him right before my professional mma debut and he just like kind of like it's it's nice because it's like a third party person. Right. So it's not like me talking to my boyfriend and my boyfriend being like, you're great. Like stop. Stop being nervous. Or like my dad being like, oh, dude, you've competed. How many times like you've got this? It's someone on the outside that's just like giving you advice and talking you through your bad thoughts. And you're like, thoughts and you're like oh

you're right it's not that big of a deal ah they're right like at the end of the day everyone's still gonna love me for who i am oh you're right this so it's it's it's pretty neat how um how much it's helped me i want to i want to i want to come back to what you said um uh you were nervous to lose i want to come back to that and said. You were nervous to lose. I want to come back to that and how you became aware of that because I think that's a thing that a lot of people don't even realize is that when they become – it's like you can have all these thoughts and not even be aware of them. Like the first step is, hey, you got to become aware of what the fuck you're thinking. I want to go back to what you were saying about being competitive as a little kid. Do you think all kids are competitive and parents take that out of them?

Like, every kid has the story the first time, like, you're five years old and you're playing checkers with your mom and she beats you and you start crying, right? Or you lose a game of Uno and you start crying. Is that every kid? You know what? I don't really know.

So I taught kids for a little bit for jujitsu and um for the most part like every kid wanted to win i didn't see one kid that that didn't want to win um even if they were like hard to even get on the mat to do jujitsu when they were in the class and stuff like they still wanted to win um but i think it's just like maybe the pressure kind of deters a lot of kids off um that like parents can put on them that's what i said like i think some kids you can push them and other kids will just break underneath it do you know what it looks like when they break um yeah it's just i think it almost looks like they're burnt out, I would say. Like they have no interest in it.

They usually want to cry. So I would say almost like when you're burnt out from doing something so much, that's what it kind of looks like in a kid. I see the opposite too. I see there's this group of kids and this group of parents at all these places I go like tennis jujitsu, skateboarding, just ballet whatever I take my kids to and there's these parents like I'll show up there with my kids and they'll have two or three kids also and one of their kids won't be doing it and I'll be like hey why isn't so and so

rolling today and they go oh he doesn't want to and I'm like I can't even believe they listen to their kid like what the fuck are you talking about he doesn't want to like you drove here and what I do with my kids I'm like if believe they listen to their kid. Yeah. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? He doesn't want to. Like, you drove here. And what I do with my kid is I'm like, if they say that to me, I'll just say, okay, no problem.

Put your gi on and sit in the mat and base. I don't, like, but you got to get on there. Like, we fucking drove here. Like, there's no, like, or they'll be like, oh, he's done with tennis. Now he wants to do basketball. And I'm like, done with tennis? Like you're two years in. We'll add basketball to the mix.

You're not done until you're – yeah. Like I just – I can't tell if I'm doing it wrong. I don't think I am. I just don't think that it should be the kid's – Choice. Yeah. It's not the kid's choice. It's not my kid's choice whether he che i don't my it's not my kid's choice whether he

chooses food with his mouth open or closed do you want to eat at the table or do you want to go in the hallway and eat with the dog out of a bowl like those are your choices if you eat at the table your mouth stays closed i don't like i like there's no like you'll start tomorrow i don't i just i and not because i'm being a dick but because i want the best for them i don't care if they hate me i don't care that's not my i'm not there to win a popularity i think every kid should should be playing a sport in general just to i think the social aspect of it and then the whole aspect of like working hard and practicing towards like a greater goal yeah it's just so beneficial and i think it's something that

needs to be taught in every single kid like i my two cousins so my dad has a twin brother okay and his twin brother was like my second dad growing up so if my dad couldn't take me to a tournament my uncle was taking me to a tournament oh that's cool i'm so lucky i had my grandparents would take me to practices that were like an hour away i used to drive an hour to jujitsu each way when i was a kid and like my uncle would take me my grandparents would take me my dad would take me my mom but my uncle was literally like my second dad would always be there for tournaments and everything um but he has two kids that don't even play any sports i'm like what like you push me so hard and your kids don't even play any sports are you what yeah people struggle pushing their own kids people struggle yeah

night and day i i i have i take three kids so it makes me feel a little better but it's 20 minutes to jujitsu um and it's an hour drive home because of traffic and i do that three days a week and then the other two days they come to the house and i'm glad to hear you say that um about the striking thing too because my kids do i sign them up for striking one day a week too where uh one of the instructors comes to the house and then and they hit pads that's awesome. Yeah. It's pretty cool. That's a, that it's crazy to see a four or five,

six year old do that. Cause it's more like a math lesson. Yep. I know. It's just like, it's crazy. It's crazy. Screaming out the numbers.

Um, tell me about W N O. Like, what do you know about it? How did it pop on the scene? How did you get invited? Like any, anything and everything like, and how it relates to amanda levy um so who's number one is um it started i

didn't even start that long ago i want to say maybe two years um and they were just good at getting um into like the mainstream of the sense of good spectators, flow grappling, which does everything for jiu-jitsu nowadays, videotaping high-level matches and tournaments. So it was just a collaborative effort of those two coming together and just putting on a great show of athletes and stuff. So they are an invite only. So you have to be invited to go and compete for them. Do you know who owns Flow Grappling? It's a website, right? Yeah.

So they have Flow Wrestling, Flow Grappling, Flow everything, Flow Gymnastics and stuff like that. I don't really know who owns that. But yeah, they just do such a great job with production and stuff they really make you feel like you're like in like a legit like professional setting um they're like videoing you like you're bidding on your warm-ups and everything um so it is it's pretty neat um so who's the guy named it's a guy named martin mark mark what's the guy's name matt map just pulled it up he yeah i don't know his last name but it looks like martin is ceo i don't know oh that's the good he just has one name flow grappling owner martin ceo

it's like share but mark okay is it a public company matt no no so it's okay okay cool okay sorry uh amanda so they make you feel professional yeah so um they like mic'd up um they were excited for my match because i called uh gabby out in the press conference i saw that yeah so they like miked up my coach um jay regal buto who's also awesome he's like super knowledgeable he's like he did commentary for them um he does commentary for a lot of like the jiu-jitsu matches so uh he's like so knowledgeable it's insane um so supportive too he's like a like a always so happy so grateful to be in the moment

kind of guy so it's cool to have him in my corner um and uh they mic'd him up for like let me let me stop you for a second did they do they call are you do you get a dm saying hey this is um so and so from flow grappling would you like to enter the wno so um j Jay Regal Buto has a lot of connections cause he does commentary. So any opportunities that I get in the grappling community is usually through him reaching out, being like, Hey, can Amanda be on this card? Hey, you need someone for this card and they'll, they'll throw me on. Wow. And, and do you have an agent? No. Um, well, uh, now I do like a management company for my MMA, for like professional MMA, just to negotiate numbers and stuff. But like for Jiu Jitsu, I usually just go through J.

Who is your MMA manager? They're called Sucker Punch. Oh. Sucker Punch management. Yeah. I'm trying to think if it was J. There's someone there's someone who I interviewed in the UFC who's with Sucker Punch I'm trying to remember who it is

they do a lot of professional fighters that are in the UFC, Bellator and stuff like that they have a lot of good athletes they reached out to you? Sucker Punch? Sucker Punch? So Sucker Punch, the way I got them

was through my striking coach. He had a guy that was managed by them, and then he reached out to them and said, Hey, you see any professional organizations looking for a 145er or a 155er? I have a female that's trying to get her first pro debut. And they're like, okay, okay cool and then they heard about uh the pfl needing a 155er and they called my coach up and was like oh there's a man in and i was like hell yeah let's do it and you won yep and and you didn't have to do any amateur fights you just jumped right into the profession i had two amateur fights but the problem with amateur

fights was that i couldn't get anyone to fight me an amateur because they would see my jiu-jitsu background, and then they would be like, yeah, I'm not fighting her. She's too experienced in jiu-jitsu. Your jiu-jitsu really is going to be a problem for people. Yeah, I hope so. It's going to fucking be a problem. Do you have any concerns? Sorry, I know we're getting ahead of the game. I want to go back to wno but do you have any concern like when you see people like ben

askren and you're like oh shit i don't want to end up like that um no uh i kind of so my thing is too like i'm not uh i guess like a huge fan of the sport like i'm not a spectator for the sport like i don't like i'm not like a diehard ufc fan or a diehard like jiu-jitsu you know fan where i'm like watching all the matches and stuff like i am someone that that rather be doing it than watching it okay like i was never big into watching sports ever like in my whole entire life like i just never football eh like if it's a big game yeah cool let's watch it basketball i hate it watching baseball i'm like again if it's a world series cool let's watch it basketball I hate it watching baseball I'm like again if it's a world series cool let's watch it um but I was never a spectator of the sport so I don't pay too much

mind to other people people's careers I guess you could say um and yeah so I'm I'm not like super worried about anything like that yet um and then my last MMA fight I got knocked down so I got the feeling of basically what it's like to have your legs shut off um and I was able to bounce back so we'll see how the next one goes wait I didn't see that your first fight that you won you also got knocked out for a second yeah so my so my pro debut for the NFL um the first round I was actually winning on my feet striking wise and. Then that one punch just came. It hit me right here in the jaw. I was still completely aware.

Nothing shut off up here. It was just my legs completely just turned right off. She almost hit a switch that turned my legs off. It was the wildest thing I've ever felt. I got knocked down, and she came forward. As she came forward, I was able to grab a single leg, take, I got like knocked down and she came forward. And then as she came forward, I was able to grab a single leg, take her down and get her to make a truth. Isn't that crazy? I watched that fight and I didn't even, that didn't, I didn't,

I didn't even know. Yeah. So like my first, you know, yeah. My, um, first amateur fight, um, was in New York and I won that in like two minutes. So like it sucks because I'm like, damn, this wasn't even an experience. I mean, like it was great, but it was also like, damn. So then I did like a boxing match and a kickboxing match just to get more experience with my feet. And then I had a fight in 2019 in West Virginia. So West Virginia school because it's pro rules, but it's amateur. So I went three rounds with that girl and on the third round i i knocked her down with a hook and i just didn't finish in time like we were ground and pounding and then the time went off but my whole point of that match was i wanted to stay on my feet

to get more experience of like what it's like to get punched and just be able to be in the game because amateur does not matter you know what i mean like you can you can have like a thousand losses and then once you go pro you're zero and zero again so it doesn't amateur doesn't mean anything so you might as well try to get all the experience you can in amateur before you go pro so then i was just trying to get an amateur fight trying to get an amateur fight more things were falling through and then i was like all right i guess i'm just gonna have to go pro and I'm like tired of waiting. Cause my first amateur fight was in 2017. And you know, then I went pro and the PFL is freaking awesome.

Puts you up in a great hotel. They take care of you so well. I could literally like text someone for anything and they bring it right to my room. Like no problem. So that was a really cool experience too um does your dad have any concerns about you doing um that hey i got her into the sport and now she's actually getting punched in the face is he like fuck i didn't i didn't mean that to happen um no i think he like loves this he's like so excited um i think this is really what he wanted and for like the end game anyway was like mma um because he's always been such a fan of the ufc like the sport itself so i think just like me

being in the sport that he like really loved when he was when it was like first starting out um is just exciting for him i wonder if your mindset's indicative of um champions like hey they don't really like they don't really want to watch the shit. Or like professionals. Like, you don't have time to watch the shit. Like, spending three hours on Sundays and three hours on Saturdays watching the NFL is like, sorry, I'd rather be doing something else with my time. Yeah. So, like, I don't know why.

I just never cared to really watch any other sport. Like, I'm like, damn, I'd rather be playing it than watching it. Do you drink alcohol? When I was younger, like 21, I went a little crazy for two years. Now I don't even want any part of it. I'm so done. I'll have a cocktail if we go out to get a nice dinner or something. But other than that, I want nothing to do with it.

And did you ever smoke cigarettes? Nope. Did you ever smoke weed? Yep. Do you still smoke weed? Yeah, I do. How about that with your lungs?

Um, so I actually do more edibles than, uh, uh, so I, I, they freaks me out thinking about my lungs being damaged from smoke. So I only do edibles i smoked a ton

of weed and i smoked a ton of cigarettes and i i would tell anyone never ever ever do it it's idiocy now i'm 49 and i'm like holy shit i used to burn shit and then breathe in the smoke what the fuck was wrong with me that's fucking complete idiocy yeah that kid why would i want anything going in my lungs look my throat's just closing up a little bit just talking about going to fucking panic attack that's crazy people do not and you have to quit eventually don't do addictive shit you have to quit eventually like smoking is cigarettes is the absolutely dumbest thing it's so fun nicotine is such a wonderful drug but you have to quit eventually don't start it's too hard it's so fucking hard yeah so that was like my thing too like uh instead of like drinking i'll just take an edible and just be be way more aware of

everything that's going on than if i was drunk anyway so and what do you do it's just like those are like the gummies yeah just like i think they're like 25 milligrams or something i would have a fucking panic attack yeah so um i smoked a little bit and then i would like feel it in training and i was like is this my head or am i really feeling this so then i just cut it off completely i'm like i am only gonna do edibles now i'm like i do not want to do anything that has to that that would even put my lungs in jeopardy. Yeah. Smart. Okay.

So, so your, your, your, your coach J says is connected. He's in the, in the behind the scenes commentary, whatnot with WNO.

So they, so then he says, Hey, do you want to enter this? And do you immediately say, yeah. And, and what are,

how many girls are invited and what's the weight class? Because, like, I couldn't figure out what the rules were. I mean, I didn't look too deeply, but I'm like, everyone looked like a giant compared to you. So the weight class is 145 and above. Okay. So my whole thing was I'm just annoyed that they don't have, like, a cap off, right? Like, there should be a end to this division. It should not be 145 and up.

So the biggest tournament for no-gi jiu-jitsu, which is ADCC, they only have two divisions for girls. They have a 132 and below and a 132 and up. So even in that, when I did ADCC in 2019, like the girls are way bigger than I was. And I think it's just so unrealistic to not have at least a middleweight division for girls or have a cap off for the heavyweight division. Because I'm going to say that Gabby Garcia is probably every bit of 270, if not more. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. because um i'm gonna say that gabby garcia is probably every bit of 270 if not more wow yeah wow yeah so people are saying like oh 225 i'm like no i'm like my boyfriend's like 220 and he's not

even close to that i don't even think he's weighs 220 my brother's at 220 and he's not even like close to the size of gabby garcia um so she's over a hundred she's got a hundred pounds on you oh i easy he has a hundred pounds on us easy and is that the first time you've ever rolled with someone who's 100 pounds heavier than you have you ever rolled with a guy who's 100 pounds heavier than you yeah i have i've rolled with like uh i think like two or three guys oh yeah definitely i have um but because that's giant for a man too oh yeah so like i've rolled with a guy that was like 255 and like six and the same height as her. So like, and how tall is she? She's like six to Wow. Yeah. Um, so and as I said, she makes me look like I'm like 120. right um so they so yeah jay i guess found out that they were doing this or they i think they might have asked him to commentate it first and then he asked if they you know filled the divisions

yet and they he offered my name in there and they accepted it so um he was like oh you want to do this i'm like oh yeah it's for thirty thousand dollars damn right't want to do it. And it's the eight best girls, theoretically, more or less, in the world. Yep. Yeah. Under what rules? Under just like, I don't, and I'm asking a question I don't even know the answer to. So the rule set for them is kind of like, they just really want you to fight. So it's like a 15 minute match and they'll judge it at basically every five minutes.

They don't stop it but the the judges are looking like okay the first five minutes are up okay i'm gonna give that to amanda oh the second five minutes are up i'm gonna give that to whoever okay so it's basically off of like position submissions like who's being the aggressor and and stuff like that like he's being okay okay um and uh i think 15 minutes might be might be like too long because if you get someone that like stalls likes to stall and just like not move it's like kind of a rough match to watch right and their finals matches are a half hour okay so um yeah so anyway so then it's just an eight woman bracket. Um, and the, uh, I had a feeling I was going to be fighting Gabby cause they came out with like, uh, the odds, um, a couple of days before they released the bracket and they had me

like, uh, the eighth, um, seed. So, um, meaning, meaning the worst one. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and they had her as the first, so as the best. Okay. Yeah. So I'm like, we'll throw, we'll throw Amanda in there with Gabby and Gabby. You'll just eat Amanda up and move on. Okay. Um, so I had a feeling, but they didn't, they won't, weren't going to release the bracket until we were at the press conference. So that whole press conference thing where they have a sitting at like a long table, they have, They have a guy asking questions like in the middle and all of us are on each end of the table. And then they say, okay, we're going to release the bracket in front of you guys. So they want to catch your reaction, I guess, on camera.

So they do that or even before that. So we were all there to weigh in and technically like my division didn't have to weigh in i don't even know why they had us weigh in i think they were just doing it for like the the cameras and like to get a picture and they wrote down our weights and i'm like where's gabby like to the other girls and the other girls were like you're not gonna catch her dead on a scale i'm like oh right because she doesn't want everyone to see the actual like weight difference that she has on us like the actual number and then i'm just sitting there and i'm like because i know i'm gonna get her so i'm like that's just so annoying like how unprofessional are you not to show up to weigh in like when we're all here and you're not

right i'm just getting mad and then i tell my boyfriend and my coach i'm like i'm about to ask something like they had like a rules meeting so i'm like i'm about to raise my boyfriend and my coach, I'm like, I'm about to ask something. They had like a rules meeting. So I'm like, I'm about to raise my hand and be like, does Gabby have to weigh in too? And my boyfriend's like, no, do it. Wait, wait for it. Wait for the press conference. And I call my dad. My dad's like, yeah, say it at the press conference. Okay.

Yeah. I hope I get to meet your dad someday. And so anyway, we get to the press conference. She like walks in so arrogantly, so arrogantly. I couldn't even believe it. I'm like, damn, she is something else. So we sit at the table and they pull the bracket up and they're like, OK, Gabby, what do you think about your first match? And she says, whatever.

Like, I never fought her before. I don't really know her, whatever. And she says, whatever, like I never fought her before. I don't really know her, whatever. And then they asked me and I'm like, I'm really excited to go against Gabby, which I was because I really wanted to see how I could do against her. Because I've seen all the girls that I've competed against go against her. I'm like, damn, I would love to know how I would do. And have you ever seen anyone beat her? Any of the girls you go against beat her?

No. So she only lost to four girls. Like I'm the fourth girl to beat her in like 20 years yeah and and i saw the last woman to beat her as a ufc fighter an incredible one i think it was is it laura dern or something is it mackenzie who was it mackenzie dern um mackenzie dern but but but she didn't she beat her on a technicality right she didn't beat her like the way you beat her yeah so she beat her i think with like a negative advantage like gabby had a negative advantage for like stalling or something yeah a penalty okay yeah and i was in the gi too okay um so yeah so she's she was just so i i was like i'm excited to fight gabby but um i just

want to know why she didn't have to weigh in and we all had to weigh in and she's like oh it's not in my contract it's not in my contract her response was so weird it's such a weird response no and then magically her english just started getting worse as she was answering the questions um but so she was like it's not my she should have just said fuck you i'm i'm i'm the biggest girl in the sport and i don't have to weigh in instead of it's not in my contract like i would have much rather of her been like then she said that she goes when you oh she did okay good i didn't see that she said when you win as much as i do then you can negotiate your own contract oh good honor okay good i didn't hear her say that part she said

don't be a pussy and i'm being a pussy you have to do with anything and then the other girls are jumping in too um anna carolina who I really think dislikes Gabby too. And this girl, Aaron. And, um, she was just like, they were like,

yeah, why don't you have to weigh in? You should have to weigh in. And she should have to, she really should have to. Yeah. So like, if I'm weighing in,

like, and she knows my weight, why can't I know her weight? Like it's, it's bull crap. The competitors need to know. It's like going to a weightlifting competition and not telling you with the weight you're going to lift i mean shut come on man they have to know

what they're going against yep exactly so um and then after that whatever the press conference or whatever um they like interviewed me they interviewed her um and then i was like my instagram was like blowing up like yeah good for you Amanda. I didn't realize how many people hate her, like legit hate her. And, um, her account's pretty obnoxious. She's pretty, uh, she's, she, her account's pretty obnoxious. I don't know if you've been over there. No, I know it is. And, um, she like commented on something coming at me, like, how dare you call me a professional

and all this stuff. And I didn't even respond to respond to it i'm like you're not even worth my time um and then that night we went to the gym and i legit practiced every single move i did in that match i did the night before like it was almost like we wrote the script out and then handed it to a director and said here we're gonna replay this and it was like 2at how much everything worked was blew our minds to the point you and jay did it you and jay yeah me jay my boyfriend and nick rodriguez who who played gabby in the dress rehearsal my boyfriend was awesome i hope i hope he's sore after that i hope you beat beat him up good. And so, like, we just drilled, like, each move that I did a couple times. And then we went to bed.

And the next morning, I'm like, damn, I have to fight Gabby today. And it wasn't that I was nervous of her. I was nervous of the weight difference, that I would get hurt. Because in my head, I'm like, damn, if I get hurt and I can't do MMA, like, that's going to really, really make me upset. Like, that's going to really suck. I know it says 235, and there's no do mma like that's gonna really really make me upset that's gonna really suck i know it says 235 and there's no shot in hell that she's 235 i see him matt pulling up the stuff yeah it also says 265 it says 62265 on there too that must be the range they're guessing

yeah um so anyway um so yeah i was just more nervous about the weight difference and getting hurt in the match and that's why i also think there should be a cap of the division because 100 pounds is a lot of freaking weight you don't see a middle you don't see smaller weight guys going against guys that are 100 pounds heavier than them um unless it's like an absolute division that they like i think that there's even laws against that in pro fighting i don't think i think that i remember hearing about it the first time uh just for boxing commissions for states i don't like when logan paul fought mayweather i think nevada or wherever they fought said hey man there can't be more than a 30 pound weight difference we don't allow it in the state and so it is what

state was wno in um that was in texas yeah i don't know if it maybe it's is that considered a professional fight yeah so i don't know how that works like okay if they had a commission there they wouldn't i don't think they would allow that i mean i'm glad they did it was awesome yeah yeah i'm not shitting on it um yeah so anyway then that morning you know we're there warming up um and um i was just trying to get in the right mindset of just like being happy being excited to fight i really was excited to fight her just to see how i could do against her and um they call us out there and on the mat and it was just like go time so it's funny because i don't remember much of the match i re-watched the match on like so on sunday night and i was like wow that happened i'm like i

didn't even i didn't remember that happened so like i went full on like tunnel vision blacked out don't remember most of the match um and it was actually kind of cool to rewatch it. Um, and when I won, um, actually when I was walking through the crowd was insane. So anything in the match that I did that was semi towards like towards me winning any type of way, the crowd was just going insane. And it was so cool.

It was, that was probably one of my favorite parts was the crowd. Um, and then the last eight seconds when I, that's what all the great people say. Isn't it amazing too? Like, One of my favorite parts was the crowd. And then the last eight seconds when I. That's what all the great people say. Isn't it amazing too? Like,

and I never know whether to believe them. So it's so good to hear you say this. You know what I mean? Like Alexander Volkanovsky wins the match against Bronte. And he's like, I did this for you guys. I do it for the fans or even Ortega loses. Cause I do it for the, I do it for the cheers.

And I'm like, holy shit. It must be really like electrifying. Oh my gosh. Like I rewatched the flow video I'm like, holy shit, it must be really like electrifying. Oh my gosh. Like I rewatched the flow video of me on her back, like, and everyone's starting to cheer. And then when I get off and I like have my hands raised and everyone's

hearing, I probably watched that like, because like, it just doesn't get old for me. I'm like, it still gives me goosebumps. Um, but like being in that moment was just so cool.

Like to have like a whole crowd, a whole, like it was almost like deafening in there. Um, to how, cool like to have like a whole crowd a whole like it was almost like deafening in there um to how how loud they were like a standing ovation and everything um it was just it was super neat uh but anyway like i just i had a whole game plan like i wasn't gonna let her bully me like she's she bullies a lot of girls and that's how she wins all of her matches what does that mean bully um like just coming in like really rough and like like pushing forward really hard like um she notoriously i would say wins her matches by like being on top and just laying on people

that's what i thought when you when you didn't finish that rear naked choke if i'm saying it right i i thought you were toast i thought she was gonna roll over on you and hold you down and i did you think that too you're like oh i couldn't even tell you what i was thinking in the middle okay okay fair i remember trying to squeeze the renegade choke and thinking like damn it feels like i'm choking a tree um like her face was purple and stuff but i i couldn't even i couldn't tell you if it was purple or not i just felt like i wasn't getting anywhere with my like normally when you squeeze a ring to get choked right like your arm kind of like gives into you where like when i was squeezing her it just was not moving like nothing was moving so i'm like damn this is terrible um and i think if she was a normal-sized girl, she would definitely have tapped.

Was it in deep, as they say? Oh, yeah. Her face was purple. If you rewatched a match, her face was super, super red. Did you hear the gurgling that I always hear the commentators talk about? No. Honestly, I couldn't hear anything because the crowd, when I locked it up, they were screaming. I couldn't even hear corner like or anything um so has anyone ever gotten out of one of your rear naked chokes before that's set in that deep

uh she's the first one like any of the other persons since you've been 11 years old that you've done that too bye-bye men men have okay like my brother if i lock up a renegade choke on him he can he can get out it's like what did you call it a reneg i lock up a renegade choke on him he can he can get out it's like what did you call it a renegade choke oh no renegade choke i probably oh sorry okay um but yeah so like my brother can get out of it but he's like also like 200 something pounds um but yeah so like once you got her fingers in, I guess that's what was stopping it. She had, like, right here, and she was just strong enough to hold out. But, yeah, so – but when she got on top of me at one point during the match, like, I know why girls break underneath her because it sucked.

Like, I am not going to lie. Like, I legit felt like I was suffocating. You know when you feel like that claustrophobic feeling, and you're like, oh, my God. That's exactly how I felt um and did you panic do you panic no I don't panic I don't panic because I've been put there before like so many times during training and stuff um and then two my competitiveness like doesn't let me like like I won't just give up just to give up in that sense um like you'll have to really put me through the ringer to like make me mentally break like that um but I can see

why girls mentally break now um because even when she was putting her shoulder like her shoulder was so big it was like coming across my face and like I could feel it like almost like suffocating me so then once I would get like a little air i'd be like okay take a deep breath and then i would try again do it again and just like keep repeating just like getting my air in and stuff like that underneath her um and then when i was able to reverse it and get on her back the last time and then i was riding on her back and i saw like there was eight seconds left and that's when i started like celebrating on her back and everyone was like oh and i'm like oh my god this is so cool did you know you were gonna win yeah well or did or did you not even care at that point you're like you were proud of yourself um honestly there

wasn't i didn't think i wasn't gonna win so i was i didn't like think in my head like oh i definitely won it was just like wow i just put on a crazy great performance. And I was just so hype about the crazy great performance I put on. And I'm notorious though for losing decisions. For some reason, I always lose decisions. So if I did lose, that probably wouldn't have been a shock for me. But again, too, like there was like, I don't think there was a doubt that she beat me just because I had her back like three times.

I had the rearing chokes in and stuff like that. So I don't think they could have even realistically gave her a chance of winning, if that makes sense. Like, it was a unanimous decision across the board. If she would have got you in a rear naked choke, would that have been? It might have been over. If she would have got you in a rear naked choke, would that have been? It might've been over. But just because she's so much bigger in the squeeze,

I probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. Cause even when the rear naked choke is not on your neck and it's on your like jaw and your teeth, like that hurts worse than getting choked. Oh, on your teeth. Yeah. So like when tournaments, cause I don't, I don't care. Like tournaments, I'll go right across people's faces. And if they want to lift their chin up and give me their neck i'll take their neck but if they're not giving me their neck i'll choke right across their chin i don't care and just and just squeeze yep and and they'll usually tap training i won't do that in training to like people that i

actually train with that's just stupid but in tournaments it's just like no holds like i know that they would be willing to do it to me so i'm doing it to them when you're going against gabby is is it um i don't want to say dirty but is it rough is there like okay like are there things happening that like the untrained eye like me doesn't see like fingers going into the ribs forearms hitting the face is it is it is it pretty violent she was like doing these like foot sweeps but they're oh yeah like kicking you i saw that too yeah so they were more like kicks and even the match after me with hafaela she like literally full-on kicked me in the middle of my thigh yes that's not a foot sweep that's a that's a kick um so yeah there's certain things sometimes that happen like that um because yeah

she was foot sweeping me and then i like hard collar tied her like i like really came down with my hand on the back of her head and she went and i was like you kicked me stop right right talked her in the middle of match i literally say you kicked me stop it and. And so then when I was actually walking back after the match too, like walking back to where the competitors were, I had people clapping for me in the back like the competitors. That was pretty cool because no one else got that kind of treatment. Right. I love it.

I absolutely love it. In the beginning of the match with Gabby, is she rolling her eyes at you or is there – she's playing some mental games with you it looks like oh she might have been I wasn't even paying attention I didn't even look at her look at her eyes to be honest um because uh once I was like there I just shook her hand I didn't really look her in the face and I just went at it and you know too like I don't really look at people's face to begin with anyway when i'm like competing because i'm looking at like their chest and like down i'm like worried about what their body's doing not

what their head's doing per se um so you're watching their hip their hips are gonna tell you what's going on like their shoulders where they're reaching and stuff like that like i don't really ever look at anyone like straight in their face um so yeah so she might have been um i think she was i think i got under her skin pretty bad at the press conference with the whole weight like weigh-in thing um because again like i think she just didn't weigh in because she really is that much heavier than us and she didn't want it to be like actually known so that she has a so people can use it as like a oh that's why you win which in my opinion is why she wins a lot of her matches like i don't think she's a very technical grappler at all i think she just just goes out there and just like is very like uh

heavy and plays a top heavy game and just is just big so like locking up anything on her if you were to lock up an arm bar on her or like anything like at one point i could have locked up a triangle on her and i knew i couldn't because i knew i wouldn't be able to finish it so i didn't even bother trying to go for it because i'm like all she has to do is throw that leg over my head because she would because guys do it to me all the time when I try and hold them and just get side control. And I would have been in a worse place than I was when I was in half guard underneath her. Crazy.

Is it one and done for that tournament? No. So, um, you, you, if you win your first match, then you, you fight again at, in the evening. And then if you win the evening match, then you fight for again at in the evening and then if you win the evening match then you fight for the finals and the next day and so and so how did she how did she end up doing did she win her next match no so she ended up dropping out what if you lose your match if you the next morning they do wrestle backs so like they do like another division for you to come back and try to win third place okay um so she ended up dropping out of the tournament again unprofessional

i don't know if she thought it was below her or what her deal was but she ended up dropping out um holy shit yeah holy shit that's almost a bigger story than you're beating her that's crazy that's crazy and that and that kind of fucks the net well i guess that yeah that does fuck up the whole tournament so then the girl who was supposed to get her gets a buy and keeps moving forward yeah so um it actually kind of screwed the one girl erin because well i ended up losing my evening match i just like mentally i couldn't recover because i just felt like I just won the whole tournament. Right. Or win like that.

Like I was just getting blown up everywhere and I just felt so accomplished. I'm like, OK, I don't even want to go on to compete after this one. But and then physically, I legit cannot recover. Like I felt like absolute dog crap after after that match. I was just physically spent and I ended up losing my evening match so i was going to wrestle back the next morning too and i woke up so sore to the point where i was like man like the thought of even having to fight gabby again would suck like feeling like this and having to fight her and then i got like a uh text from my coach and was like, dude,

they're not, Gabby's not even answering any phone calls or texts from who's number one or from, from flow. And I'm like, no way, really. And he's like, yep. So I'm like, damn, that's crazy. Like I couldn't imagine just dropping out. So she left, no one ever saw her again. I actually ended up seeing her like that evening on an electric scooter in Texas. Oh shit. Did you guys wave to each other? saw her again um i actually ended up seeing her like that evening on an electric scooter in texas

oh shit did you guys wave to each other so we were outside at one in the morning and um she just came like zooming by on an electric scooter by herself with like her two like friends i guess i don't know um and she just kept going up and down the street that we were on, like being like super obnoxious, like, Whoa, like a little kid. And I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, am I just like crazy? Or is she purposely doing this to like, try to get some type of reaction out of me? Um, and I, I think, I don't know Portuguese, but i think she called me a bitch in portuguese um i think it's puta and i heard her say like um something something in portuguese and then i heard puta and i'm like to my boyfriend on coach i'm like i'm pretty sure she just called me a bitch in portuguese and then um that's that's almost like getting a second victory yeah right yeah yeah i'm like

you're like 30 somethingsomething years old, dude. You got the physical victory, and then you got the emotional, intellectual victory. Yeah. So the next match you lose, and then are you done? Or then you have a third match, and you lose that one too? Yeah, so I lost that one too. And I don't know which one i saw i saw you go against the girl who won the whole thing and she was she was huge

compared to you also that was my second match um that was so i actually had a match with her in october that's pretty cool right okay sorry so tell me about your match with her in october sorry but it is cool that you lost to the girl who won it. I mean, at least you can say that. Yeah. So I had a match with her in October and I beat her in October. So both of our matches went to decision. So the one in October, I was able to get like two takedowns on her.

And then this match, I think I got one takedown on her, but she got better positioning and that's why she ended up winning the decision. What is your preferred takedown? Double legs. It is? is yeah is that normal for um jujitsu practitioners to like the double leg or is that something you got from wrestling um so i've always my dad has always pushed like getting the takedown first like uh because like mentally the person's already down by points like they're like oh crap i'm already down by points like they're like oh crap I'm

already down and like to it's just like you're already up on the points but so I think my wrestling has gotten better because I've been dating my boyfriend who's a wrestler but I've always really liked double legs just because it feels so satisfying to hit when you do hit it. But a lot of... God, they look amazing too. If you're rooting for someone and they hit a double leg, you're like, oh yeah. But a lot of Jiu-Jitsu people suck at wrestling. So that's just a known fact.

Jiu-Jitsu people are just terrible at wrestling. Just a known fact, Jiu-Jitsu people are just terrible at wrestling. So you'll get a lot of guard pullers who just sit on their butt and just wait for you to come in to start their sweeps and stuff. But you're starting to see more wrestlers entering into the Jiu-Jitsu world. So it's getting better gradually. How did you meet your boyfriend um so he signed up at the school that i was training out um in 2018 and um i ended up like rolling with him and i ended up like sweeping them like beating them and we actually have it on tape so i was getting ready for uh a tournament

and they needed like a video of me training for like their promo and we so we have it on video the first time we ever rolled and i beat him and that i didn't really think much of of anything then like he had like a girlfriend i was like doing my own thing and then in 2019 um we went to a tournament together and he was going with his friend nick nick's like big in the judaic community nick rodriguez okay so we were at that tournament together and he just like started talking to me and again i'm like there to compete so i'm still not thinking anything more than just casual and you're around dudes so much right i'm guessing you kind of have to turn that off you have to like be like okay like you're a dude yeah so it literally i did not even like cross my mind um and then a couple months after that tournament

he like messaged me on instagram and then we just started talking and i never stopped talking ever since so he liked you yeah yep he knew he liked you and he was just looking for an end to court you yep and um do you like is having a boyfriend a hindrance when you're trying to compete at the level you're competing at um no i actually think it's for me it's been better because someone who understands like if i had a boyfriend maybe that didn't do wrestling or jujitsu they it probably wouldn't be as beneficial um but because he's been a wrestler his whole life and he does juiu-jitsu um it's been like the best the greatest benefit to me like when i'm weight cutting like he meal preps everything

for me um he'll tell me what to eat when to eat it like has it down to a science um he's like he knows not to get into like emotional fights with you before events he knows like he never complained that you do train more and don't call him. He's not like like one of these. Sorry, but your peer group sucks like demanding texts and people your age are fucking. They're going to have horrible relationships their whole lives because of the demand they put on each other. The demand. It's impossible to be a good mate to to your generation. Yeah, I know.

I know I'm speaking a little bit in hyperbole and gross generalization, but. No, I know. I agree. know i'm speaking a little bit in hyperbole and gross generalization but no i no i agree it just like even the dating scene for my age group is literally insane trying to find someone who's like actually willing to have a relationship is like my sister has so much trouble finding anyone that like willing to go on a date or in a long-term relationship it's it's it's literally crazy um but anyway i was just lucky enough that he does this sport and he understands this sport like we don't we may maybe had like one fight in three years like we don't even really fight to begin with so is he a good fighter like when you did get in that fight was it a good fight

because you need a good fighter he's better at arguing so i'm more like i can't get i'm bad at getting my points across like i'm one of those people like i'm bad with my emotions because i don't know how to explain my emotions i just i take everything in and then i just shut down like i'm just like don't don't i don't bend to people or anything like that i just take my emotions and then i eventually just build up and then i'll do like one big blow up and then i'll be good for another year um where he is better at everything because he talks everything through like he doesn't get it like he would never he would never even call me a loser as a joke like that is how respectful this this man is i am so

lucky um so just having him in my corner is such a huge benefit too because he understands the competition like mindset of like the stress you're under when you're getting ready yeah so he's he can talk me through stuff um like the morning i woke up with the fight with gabby and stuff i'm like i said to him like i'm so nervous and he would talk me through it i felt a thousand times better after that conversation we went and we did our thing and ended up winning so i'm just really lucky to have someone that understands what i do that is really cool yeah that is really cool i when um i see people around me nervous i'm not sure how it's hard being around someone who's nervous or who has that much pressure on them because you you want to help but you don't want to fuck it up yeah you're like should i let them be nervous should i not let them be nervous should i like try it am i gonna say

something fuck it up um gary esparza said in the comments just now i'm so glad you got her on uh amanda's an absolute apex predator she called out gabby and then just worked her in the match skillful and class act didn't let gabby just walk on her with her size you're probably getting a ton of that right honestly that doesn't get old though that's for sure I love it. Brian Brown has a question for you will you ask her if it was hard to control that much body mass Amanda put so much pressure on her neck and she didn't budge. Yeah it really was so I always explain it as like technically I felt like everything was working so smoothly but physically it was so hard on my whole body like just trying to move her and trying to squeeze stuff and just trying to even grip her my my forearms haven't

been shot like that probably since i was a kid when i was doing tournaments like when you're kind of like new to doing tournaments and you like over grip everything and your your grips are shot before your next match i haven't had that feeling since I was a kid. And I had that feeling right after the match with Gabby. I couldn't barely even grab a pen. So a little girl came up to me and asked me to sign her belt. And I could not even grab the marker because it was my grip strength was that, that shot.

That's crazy. Um, do you, are you stronger now after that match? Like in, in terms of like, just like working out, do you think like after now after that match like in terms of like just like working out do you think like after you do a match like that like there's no way you could ever train get what the growth that you got from that match you could never get in training or or does that actually

knock you back a match like that um so like i said the next morning i felt like i had to buy a truck uh-huh essentially i feel way stronger um and then like this week i've kind of like laid off like doing much just to like try to let my like um an injury that i'm getting checked out tomorrow um so like from that mat from that match you think i think it was from that match so the next morning i couldn't really walk on my leg. Like my shin was like killing me, like the pain ungodly still hurts really bad. So I've had stress fractures in my shin before. So I think that,

that that's kind of what this feels similar to. So I think I might have got like a stress fracture again, just from like, maybe like holding on, like trying to hold onto that half guard and stuff. But we'll see, we'll see what it is. Um,

but yeah, so mentally I feel stronger, but physically, um, I definitely think I can get stronger, like, especially the one I'm going to be getting ready for, like my next,

you know, professional MMA fight and stuff like that. Like the training and the weightlifting and stuff like that. I always feel super strong going into tournaments. You said the PFL had just, um, one is just one female weight class, 145 plus? 155. 155. So, number one is the 145 plus.

Okay. So, do you have an MMA match lined up? No. So, I'm waiting to hear back from them to see when I can fight next. I guess they'd want to do it sooner than later right i get but i guess you've got to lick your wounds a little yeah so um the pfl the way they work this is they do um like a season so they're not like you oh okay yeah so like um you're basically competing like every time you win a match, you get so many points depending on how many,

how many, depending on how you win the match. And then at the end of the season, the, whoever has the most points gets put into a playoff division and it's a bracket. And then you fight for a million dollars. Oh,

that's right. I knew that. I've seen that. And it's on ESPN or something. I've seen it. Okay. I've seen that. And they give a million for women and a million for men.

Yep. Yeah. Wow. That's cool. Who won it last time? Do you know the lady's name? Kayla Harrison. So she's a judo Olympic gold medalist.

Oh, shit. I'm going to look her up and watch her match. There's so many. There's so many. Go ahead. She won last season. And then I think their last one is this month at the end of this month she'll she'll be fighting i think at the end of this month

for another for another million bucks try to win it again yeah holy shit it's it's crazy there's so many different like like i've just started trying to watch a little bit of cage warriors i think that's over in in europe they're like it would be a full-time job to stay on top of mma oh i know like it's nuts it's growing really really fast too yeah it's exploding it's hard it's um it's hard to be a uh like a true fan of all of it it's almost it's like just watching the ufc it's the only sport and only tv i watch and it's three hours every saturday and it's like jesus that's quite that's a fucking hell of a time commitment yeah i'm always glad to hear that you don't do that you just train and have fun yep exactly are you gonna have kids i want to yeah yeah yeah so that's like one of the

i'm like you know right off the bat that we both want kids one day but there's no rush no um i'm 24 now um i would like to get like a few more years of fighting in and then have kids my if this helps you any my my wife and i were together from our 20s to to now so and i'm 49 now and it wasn't until she was 39 and i was 43 and we met probably the same i was probably 24 when i met my wife, but, but we were never, we never wanted kids and we never wanted to get married. We just wanted to just be, just have fun. And then at 39, she said, Hey, let's have a kid. And now we have three kids and I'm 49.

So like someone like you who's healthy and eating right. And you know what I mean? You're not drinking and like you're, you're taking care of your body feel. And some people are like, Oh, I want to have kids young so I can play with them. I'm telling you, even though I can't play with my kids, probably like how you could play with them. It's still great being like, I can still go to the beach. I can still wrestle with them a little bit. I can still like, yeah, yeah, totally. Like it's not, um, I can't play six hours of Frisbee with them,

but I can still play an hour and it's like, uh, it's awesome – I can't play six hours of Frisbee with him, but I can still play an hour. And it's like – it's awesome. So don't feel rushed. Thanks for coming on. I'm super excited. Maybe – oh, can I ask you one more question? Yeah. There's this thing – I read this book called Bounce. And basically the premise of the book is that there's no such thing as talent that there's just hard work and it and they talk about tiger woods

and um mozart and roger federer and just like they're like hey man don't believe the fucking hype there's no talent there's no there's no such thing as a prodigy and i'm kind of sensitive to that because people will say oh my god your kids are so talented or they're and they're not talented they're they're absolutely not talented they're this is they started jujitsu at four and they do it five days a week they started tennis at four they do it five days a week they they started climbing trees i let them start climbing trees before they could walk they're epic tree climbers you know what i mean like we threw i have a basket of tennis balls and we throw tennis balls every day for 15 minutes i mean like are you talented or are you a prodigy? And I see people referring to as talented and a prodigy.

And I'm like, holy shit. I was like, no, she has an abusive dad. No, I'm joking. Do you have a thought on the subject? So it's so funny you're saying this because I'm reading the book called The Outliers. Yes. Yes. Another. Yeah. Yeah. That's gladwell's book right yeah so my whole i'm getting thrown for a loop it's so funny you're asking this because now i'm questioning stuff that i thought like so his thing is that if you want to be good at something like uh uh consider i guess if you want to be good at something like, uh, uh, considered, I guess, like if you were like a prodigy or something that you have to put at least 10,000 hours in, right. And like,

looking back, I've definitely probably put close to 10,000 hours in the Jiu Jitsu, if not more. Um, so I wouldn't say I'm like a prodigy. I think, I think it's just my circumstances, my opportunities, and just that I'm willing to work hard. Like the hard work and the opportunities that I've had, like, again, if I didn't have. That's what this book Bounce says, by the way, too. He says it's hard work, but also opportunity. I'm gonna give you a quick example. Sorry to interrupt.

He talks about a guy who is in England, who is a, the world, he was the fastest ping pong player in the history of the world. And the opportunity he had is he was so fucking poor that he had to fastest ping pong player in the history of the world and the the opportunity he had is he was so fucking poor that he had to play ping pong in a tiny shed where his hips were pushed up against the table and that for and he didn't play in a nice place where you could stand back from the table and that made his reaction time faster than everyone else's because he played in a fuck situation so that was when so when you use the word opportunity sometimes it's a bad opportunity and sometimes it's a good opportunity sometimes it's a bad opportunity and

sometimes it's a good opportunity but it's still an opportunity okay sorry to interrupt okay so you had hard work and opportunity sorry so like i always look at like looking back at if i didn't have the opportunity to have such great family that was willing to take me an hour to jiu-jitsu every day like would i be where i am today if i didn't have the opportunity that i knew jay who has the connections to who's number one who got me in the tournament as an unranked i didn't have the opportunity that i knew jay who has the connections to who's number one who got me in the tournament as an unranked i wasn't even ranked on the flow grappling and he got me in that tournament i wouldn't be sitting here talking to you because i wouldn't have beat gabby because i wouldn't have had the opportunity to be and i wouldn't have jumped on the bandwagon

there you go um now i guess after reading that book it's kind of persuading me more towards um that hard work and opportunities and the people you surround yourself with have a big impact of how you're going to succeed or fail. Yeah, you should definitely check out this book, Bounce. Yeah, I will. I think it's more recent. He obviously steals a lot of stuff from outliers, but it's kind of like taking it to the next. And I would highly recommend this other book. If you like outliers and bounce, you should read this book called range by David Epstein. And basically the book compares someone like, um, tiger woods, who they put a, um, a golf club in his hand at 10 months old and Roger,

who is the greatest golfer of all time. And then they put Roger Federer, who is the greatest tennis player of all time. They didn't do that to him. He played every sport. And it wasn't until like he was 19 or 20 that he, I guess, buckled down and picked one, picked tennis. But it's fascinating to see. And there's a concept in this book that they introduced that's so fucking fascinating.

I wish I could think of the word, but it's basically pattern recognition in human beings. And they talk about why Wayne Gretzky was so good at hockey and that basically he could see patterns so far out ahead that people were doing that he would go he would see something that he knew two minutes later would lead to the hockey puck being somewhere else on the rink and he would trust that judgment and so he would just hang out somewhere people like what the fuck's he doing over there and then the fucking puck would go up there and he'd shoot it in and so it's like this this crazy pattern recognition that you get and they described it as like folding a piece of paper in half anyway check out those books it's's awesome. Yeah, they are super interesting. And I, it really threw me for a loop too, because I remember just like people growing up and people

like, Oh my God, this person's a prodigy. Oh, this person's a prodigy. But then again, too, I think that you have to have the interest in the sport too, or be like naturally inclined. Some people are just really not athletic, right? Like, can you, that's my question is, can you teach someone to be like athletic when they're just not, not naturally inclined to be athletic, you know? So. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean, obviously there's body types, right? There's, there's body types. There's, um, I mean, I mean, you would have to assume that if you were raised in a house with Michael Jordan and you saw his movement patterns that you'd be great at jumping, right? Even if you didn't practice jumping as opposed to – but there's something to say for hard work, man. Yeah, yep, for sure.

Are you a good teacher? I like to think I am. Yeah. I love teaching the kids. They were my favorite people to teach um just because uh i had a room full of freaking little killers and especially like the little girls that dude they would just go at it like with each other like mean and then afterwards get up hug each other and move on that's that was so great about it right like that you could just go out and try

to kill someone for five minutes and then afterwards you're best friends again. Do you think – sorry, I said one more question. I put more piling in. Do you think that when I tell people – they ask what sport do you think my kids should do? I said, hey, if you have a girl and you don't teach her jiu-jitsu, I think you're doing her a disservice. And they go, why? I'm like two-thirds of the planet is covered with water. So if you don't teach your kid to swim, then you're not inoculating them from drowning.

Drowning is the number one cause of death of kids under the age of five. Now, if you're a woman and you don't teach them jiu-jitsu, basically they're on a planet where half the planet is trying to stick their dick in them. Why not teach your daughter how strong she could be from her back with her legs in the air? Like that would be a horrible place to have a black belt. Oh yeah. So that's like, yeah. When I say that, am I, am I, am I being honest? Is that fair?

Like if you have a girl teach them jujitsu? Yeah. It's an optimal self-defense. The most realistic self-defense. Like realistically, you're not going to punch someone in the face. Like as a girl, if a guy punches you, you're going to get knocked out. Whereas like jujitsu, I remember being a girl in high school and all my friends were like guys and stuff and they would be like all right let's wrestle let's go and i would submit them in like literally

a second so when you go to go from someone who knows nothing about jiu-jitsu and you know so much about jiu-jitsu it is so hard for that person who has no clue what's going on how to even go about deterring that person basically to be as crass as i can be no man is raping a black belt female yeah unless they know jiu-jitsu too and then you're kind of screwed but a regular guy off the street is there's no chance no yeah amanda your boss uh thank you very much i appreciate it um you have no i appreciate it i'm i'm leveraging your fame and uh and your brain and your talent one of my friends who's uh i'd call him famous said to me how does it feel just leveraging other people's fame? And I go, I'm cool with it. Yeah, you have an awesome thing going here.

So I appreciate the conversation. And bam.