The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Ronda Rousey

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Ronda Rousey joins Andy Richter to discuss their shared experience participating in the reality show “Stars on Mars,” her love for the WWE, Ronda’s world champion mother, making time for family, and much more.This episode was recorded on July 13, 2023.

Hi everybody, Andy Richter here with the three questions and I am really thrilled that I am getting to talk to Rhonda Rousey because we shared an experience recently. We both went to outer space together. We didn't plan it that way, but we both are on the Fox show, which is currently running, Stars on Mars. We're both stars, apparently.

And Martians as well. Yeah, and Martians. And I just, and first of all, let me get out of the way, Rhonda, let me butter you up before you were so fantastic and getting to know you was truly possibly the best thing that came out of that thing because your energy is just, I said, you know, you're like a, you're like a human. I said, I said this to somebody there. I said, she's walking Prozac. She just, you can't be sad around you because you're just so much fun and so enthusiastic

about everything. And it just was, it was really, it was great having you there. And I just got to, you brought your baby in. I don't know if we're, how we're editing this, but you brought your baby in who I know was a big motivator for you to get home i mean it was you know probably a motivator well you know you get a paycheck to be there so she's a motivator to go after a while well the thing is it's like it was the longest i was ever away from her and so that's what made it really tough that was the toughest part but i'm also i don't if you learn this while you were on mars i'm a big space nerd yeah and like the excuse to go to adult space

camp was pretty like awesome and i actually really loved it it's funny when we were there i was like amazing experience i'll never do it again and then as soon as i left i was like well if they do all stars on mars you know if that's our core group of people, if Andy's there, I'll come back. You know, honestly, that would that would make a huge difference. It was so funny to me that there was zero stakes. Like, what do you get when you win? William Shatner says you're the brightest star in the galaxy. And so, like, to everybody in the beginning, it was just like a big joke of like, all right, we know we're all here because of the paycheck.

Me, because I like space, you know, and I like space. I like all right we know we're all here because the paycheck me because i like space you know and uh i don't know i like space i like space you know yeah but uh for me i was i'd never been to australia really so that was yeah that was like a big i was very excited about that aspect of it and i i mean i got to see some stuff you know uh you know at the beginning in the end of you know before we started and after we were done, I got to see some stuff. So it was really funny when you're coming. I have kind of really bad social anxiety. I call it like post social anxiety where, like, I can function when I meet people.

But afterwards, I like overanalyze everything so much. I'm like, oh, my God, you said this wrong. And to the point where I'm like, I should just never leave home and never talk to anybody that's not worthy. It freaks me out. And so I just got comfortable with the first group of people after I'd like spent the first night crying in my bed and like, you know,

hating myself for saying like one or two things, like not perfectly, it's so stupid. But then when you guys are about to come, I was all nervous. Like, what if they send one of my enemies? What if it's somebody that tries to start shit? what if it's always like you know things built up my mind and it showed up and you guys were like you're just sweet as pie or like oh my god there's people some stimulation i swear to god when we first started the show everyone's like this is so stupid

no one wants to base commander marshawn was basically under by default because everyone wanted to go outside and actually do the activity and all of the patches were like this is so dumb we're like rolling our eyes with william shatner about the mission patch but once you're like in this experiment for a long amount of time you're like i want that mission patch and it's so important to you and they start voting for face commander and everyone's like all deep into it of who should be face commander and they start arguing with each other in front of you guys i was so embarrassed like i wanted to melt into the wall of like we just got these new people here and you have my social anxiety i'm like they think we're crazy stop embarrassing us like who gets to shoot his base commander who gets to shoot the

manufacturing stakes this is not a competition like i have competed in things okay this is yes space camp no one wins space camp and right look at so seriously i was so embarrassed when you first showed up i was like oh man they're just gonna all leave and think that we're nuts but we were already like super institutionalized by the time you guys got right you all were in your roles yeah and every day they're like say you're in mars say it's soul whatever say it was so immersive and everyone around you is acting like it's mars that everyone really started thinking it was fucking mars by the time you showed up and i was i was so embarrassed i thought yeah when you walked up

and left i was like oh he's gone we messed it up And he's not here. He thinks it's too crazy to hang with. Thank you for staying. I really appreciate it. No, no. I mean, I had to explain this to people, too, about taking it seriously because it's absurd. You know, it's like, A, the idea that, like, it's the first habitat, human habitat on Mars. So what do we do? first habitat human habitat on Mars so what do we do we put some people that won Olympic medals and reality show stars and comedians and football players out there like it's just like why would

you do that and it's all you know and then it's all just so you know it's just a such a silly concept and I mean and the thing that I really do like about the show is that it knows it's kind of silly you know like it's like yeah they're kind of taking it serious but they also and you know the people that made the show they know it's kind of silly i mean they're calling us celebronauts how can you say that exactly but i i try to explain to people you know because like when talking to my wife back home i I'm like, I want to win this thing. I want to like because, you know, like everybody else is up like doing hard workouts. And I'm like, who wants bacon? You know, I'm cooking breakfast.

And I kind of feel like, you know, I really want to win this over these like people that are super hyper competitive because i've never been hyper competitive in an overt way like i like games and i like winning games so i was like i really want to i want to do this because it would be just fun you know but you know like you said they got to incentivize it if there was another there was some money at the end too i would i might have you know well i mean i think cooking bacon was helping people a lot more than working out. Man, when you guys showed up with that, uh, with the actual little grill thing and,

Oh, you have no idea. We were living off of like cereal and like not even top ramen. It was like bottom ramen. It wasn't even good. It was so bad. So you guys should, you showed up and you're like, I'll cook bacon this morning.

I'm like, Andy, I want to kiss your face. Oh my God, bacon. We showed up with food and a chef, you know? Oh my gosh. And we got to sit down and have a little family meal. That was cute. That was something that the, that I, you know, the producers of the show told me too, is that they learned as they went that they were, they were like, no, you can't leave the habitat, which means like go out to the parking lot and

talk on the phone to your loved ones back home. And apparently people were like, fuck that. I'm going out to the parking lot. Yeah. Like telling Marshawn Lynch to do anything that he doesn't want to do. Like half the time he wouldn't put on his microphone. Or like, there's a great promo shot of him in his helmet. Because they did photo shoots of us, obviously to use for promotion. And he never did his photo shoot with his space helmet on. So they just took a picture of him in a cowboy hat and a beanie he had a beanie and a cowboy hat and then put him in

the space helmet it's the most hilarious thing because it's like how could you possibly get two hats on under a space helmet but he did it completely straight it's like not even bent by the helmet at all yeah my friend jason describes marshawn as the funniest person who's never told a joke yes that is like i i would just sit around him and like laugh at him like he was the truman show happening in front absolutely most entertaining person i've ever met yeah oh my god he was great um do you think that like being a competitor was helpful in that sense? You know, I mean, because. I think it was helpful in that, like, I've competed in things that were actually really high stakes.

Yeah. All of, like, the actors in reality TV stars are like, oh, my God, this is a competition. I'm like, I've been in two Olympics. Yeah, yeah. Space camp, guys. No one wins space camp. Who cares? And so it kind of kept me from taking it too seriously.

Yeah. Because I competed at a really high level that I'm like, okay, this is not. Yes. This is space. So they kept trying to ask me stuff like, are there factions? Are there like things and da, da, da, da? And you notice they never put any kind of interview about me when they're talking about factions and stuff because i was like no there's not

i get along with everybody we're just trying to get through to the end together and this is about like keeping the social network you know completely like intact and like you know everyone helping each other and being there for each other they cut all my kumbaya shit out i didn't want any of that in there they like and there was not like nearly as like cut throat or they had all of this stuff about this tension and everything in there it was completely manufactured to me i never felt that vibe that oh there's these factions and that and that and that and that and well yeah and i mean and there were some people, I think, that were kind of like, like, I didn't go into it. And this is something that I said a lot back, you know, like, in the interview things.

I said, I'm here to make a TV show. That's what I do for a living. I make television. So I'm not here to, like, my first thing isn't, like, I'm going to win the competition. I'm going to be, like like the best Martian celebrity astronaut. Like I'm like I'm going to help make a TV show. Like I'm going to I'm going to, you know, do what I do. I was going to treat it like it was a talk show or a game show.

All right. You know, more like a game show because it is it's a game show. And and there were people that took it kind of serious and in fact at one point like there's somebody and i i don't think it's been on yet but there's somebody that kind of accuses me of like conniving acting in a certain way because i know that would be better for my chances of sticking around and i was and i i had to say i do not give a shit about any of that i don't you know i was like i don't care he's respected i was stabbing for it like yes i've made fat i've me and lance armstrong have made a secret blood pack you know it's like no i'm just here i'm just doing the you know I'm taking it day by day.

I'll take your bacon, man. What are you saying? You're trying to make bacon so that we don't vote you off. Right. Well, yeah. And the thing that I really, the thing that I really felt was my most valuable thing is I felt like while I was there, I was the only person that took out the garbage, like the trash. There was a place to take it? while I was there, I was the only person that took out the garbage. Like the trash can. There was a place to take it? I would just go throw it out the door, you know, and figure somebody else's problem.

But it would be overflowing. Like I'd come into the kitchen and it'd be overflowing with garbage. And I'd be like, you're all fucking adults. Like, what the fuck? You don't even know. We had to fight for a broom and a mop. Like the floor was disgusting in the beginning. And we had to like literally get them to give us like brooms and stuff like that. I mean, it's pretty funny.

Lance is kind of our designated asshole. I don't know if you ever saw him do this. But they'd be like, the AI would be like, Lance, please go to interview room one for your interview. And he'd be like, I'm not going for an interview until we get more wine. One bottle of wine for 10 people is not acceptable. And they'd be like, Lance, more wine is in the closet. Please go to interview room one. And I would be like, wow, I would never say that.

But I'm going to drink that wine that he got for us. Thank you, Lance. Thanks for paying the debt. Yeah. But yeah, we had to do stuff like that to leverage like the water the water cooler thing we had to drink water out of the sink when we first got there there was no water cooler we had no room we had no mop um we had no alcohol no fresh food either it seemed like it was all like shrink-wrapped or vacuum sealed. It was so bad.

Like, you don't have no idea the fright that we fought for you to have when you showed up. No, I do, because you guys talked about it all the time. You guys were like old people. Like, you don't know how hard it was. You guys got it easy. These challenges are for pussies. That's so true, though. The first challenges were nuts. But it was also kind of cool in that, like, if you shoot

like an action film or something like that, you do a sequence like that. You have to do it a million times and every little part and it's all tedious and you have to do all kinds of rehearsals and stuff. This was just kind of like the fun part. You just kind of get thrown in and you get to do like the stunt. And if you mess it up, then you lose. But it was like an action movie on like uh like on what's it called on fast forward so you kind of got to skip the tediousness and

just do the stunts and then go back right so well i don't want to talk i don't want to talk about stars on mars all the time i want to talk about you because i'm happy to have you on the show because i mean we you know you've been on the Conan show a number of times but there's no you know it's such an artificial environment that I didn't really I mean I felt like I'd met you but I didn't feel like I I've known you but you've you know you've had such a jam-packed life for you know the person that's not that old. I've lived several lifetimes. Yeah. Well, I mean, you, you, you were brought up to be a fighter quite literally. Your mom was like the first American to win the world judo championship. Wow. Yes, you're right. And is that female or male?

Female or male. First one ever. Incredible. And then, so she just, was she always just tossing you around? Uh, no, but we did wrestle a lot in the living room. She had this one game called eyeball the terrible villain. Or she would, uh, lay in the middle of the living room and we would run from couch to couch. She would like grab us and like wrestle us down and tickle us and we would have to escape and jump away and yeah so that's like one of my why i was always like pushing furniture out of the way to wrestle in the living room like that's one of my favorite things ever and i can't wait until my little girl is old enough for me to wrestle around with her we have a ring in the backyard she loves getting the ring and roll around and like i show her like how to do

like do like a flip and just like to fall and all these things and she does all the jumping and falling and so it's kind of like yeah like a family thing that how we kind of like bond and play around i just love i love wrestling and my and that came from my mom wrestling with us babies need to learn to take a flat back bump they just need to learn yeah you know tuck your chin when you fall. I mean, I actually, I'm not, I'm not a fighter, but like, I, you know, like I, I'm a, I was a pro wrestling fan, you know, since I was a little kid, I don't keep up as much as I used to be, you know, just because life or whatever, but, but I have, you know, and so I always was kind of like aware of like what was going on

and you know and you could you know and like me and my friends would you know like do power bombs on each other like onto like a beanbag chair or something you know and and that and you really realize like oh you can't do that all yourself. Like you, you need the person who's being power bombed to do like 50% of the work or you're going to hurt yourself. I've always taught my kids when we're, you know, from tossing them around, like now before you land, tuck your chin, like keep your chin down, you know, like protect your neck and your head. It's so funny.

Poe has started, uh, she has like this blow up triceratops and her favorite thing is to throw herself off of it. But she puts her arm out to fall and I'm like, don't post. You can't post. You can just look at your elbow. So she'll be throwing herself over and I'm like pulling her hand every time. I'm trying to teach her like the Kemi Wazo, which is falling technique.

And you know, yeah, it's like those little things of like, no, you need your falling technique. And my boys play football and I'm always like, you know, you need you need to fall correctly really a falling technique is very important like okay ronda all right yeah they're already like getting ready for like college and all of this stuff like that i'm like make sure you fall correctly okay when you're with the big boys playing football yeah when you're drunk and you fall down you know make sure you fall remember to not be so drunk.

You forget to not put your elbow out. I had one of those embarrassing moments in middle school where like I tripped and fell with my backpack on and like did like an Enkemi and rolled through and popped up and was like, oh my God, I didn't see them. So embarrassed. That one kid saw and was like, that was so cool. Like, okay. What did that embarrassment? Man, that would have been terrible. Seventh grade. I would have gone home and died. Like, okay. What is that embarrassment? Man, that would have been terrible.

Seventh grade, I would have gone home and died. That's great. But yeah, it comes in handy. Can't you tell my love's a crow?

Now, you were the youngest and... I was the youngest for 11 years and then my younger. And then you have a half do you have like step or half brother sisters or yeah i have three sisters but i think yeah only one of them is a full sister but one of my my younger sister we have different dads and we're

the ones that look exactly alike it's okay so yeah we never really think about it like that you know we're all right no i know i. I have a younger half-brother and sister and I'm the second of four. You know what I mean? And we have different dads, but that doesn't, you know. The only thing that was weird about that was that their twins, they're nine years younger than me and their names are Katie and Victor. And their last name is Swanson. than me and their name, their names are Katie and Victor. And it's their last name is Swanson.

And so I would take my brother around after, you know, he got to be like college age and I'd bring him around and I'd say, this is my brother, Victor. This is Vic. This is my brother, Victor. And finally, somebody said, wait a minute, your brother's name is Victor Richter? No, no, no. I was thinking Swanson, Johnson, but Johnson, what a funny Johnson, Swanson, and Victor Richter. Yeah, Johnson, Swanson. Yeah, yeah. But I was like, no, no, no, it's not Victor Richter. But when, like, did you, was it put on you? Like, is everybody in your family or all the kids, like, were they all like kind of expected to get into judo and to get into competitive sports

no they're all expected to try it yeah so my all my sisters tried it and they were like i think maria tried it won her first tournament when she was six and then decided to quit while she was ahead undefeated and then uh jennifer tried it and someone tried to choke her because you're allowed to start choking when you're 13. And she was like, fuck that. Yeah. Someone tried to choke her. I'm not getting choked. Then I tried it right before I turned 11.

And I just fell in love with it right away. And then my little sister, since before she was four, wanted to do judo because she saw me doing it. So my mom started teaching TV judo and then she did it for a while and then got over it and just did it. She was more of a team sport person. She liked the social aspect. So everyone tried it,

but I was the one that really like dove into it because I was like the real competitive one, I think out of all of them because I was like the youngest and always wanted to like prove myself to be taken seriously. And all my sisters always bigger and better than me at things. So I think that's what made me really competitive.

And then Julia, I think was just so far removed from that, from having to compete with their sisters because we were so much older. So, um, I don't know. I was like reading, um,

Malcolm Gladwell's outlier or whatever. And that was like one of those things that like being a younger sibling or something like that plays a factor in making people competitive and having you know a formative tragedy happening when you're like eight or something like all the things that he listed that would make you like more likely to be an outlier or something like that like i checked every single box oh really weird a lot of it was by chance. Yeah. Like, do you think that there was also like an attraction to doing it because your mom, you know,

was so, so good at it and it was such a big part of her life. Yeah. I mean, I think it, it made everything seem achievable because if you have a world champion walking through your living room, you know,

like she's not an alien. I can win the world championships too my mom can so it made everything seem a lot more attainable because of her and she had a lot of like the connections and the knowledge and stuff like that that she didn't really want to be my head coach but she wanted to oversee who I was training and who I was training with and she like knew what to give me at the right times and so um I was always kind of like seen as having a lot of potential from a really young age when I started late usually people start like six like gymnastics and they started like 10 and in swimming like I was a good swimmer that's what I did before but I wasn't like

amazing and whereas where I started doing judo people really took notice right away that like oh my god this this girl is going to be really amazing at this and I was just hyper competitive and really athletic and really into it at a very young age and so like I think thrived on having that kind of attention but like people saw me as like something special and I I love that that feeling of being special when you're you're always like the youngest and you're just like you know kind of discounted in an afterthought and the little baby that if you're seen as like no this little chick is going to be a killer i'll be like yeah i'm gonna be a killer and i have this video of um like certificate of me holding like first place

in the white belt division and it's i look like a diaz brother like i'm sitting there like what like first place in the white belt division you know and you know winning a swimming tournament when there's 150 other kids competing in the same race it's i i wouldn't i would maybe get a ribbon or top 10 or something but the once i started winning something i got like addicted to that feeling of yeah win and i won my first tournament and i i remember i got one my first tournament i got second my second tournament and i got a first and the third my third tournament because even by then my mom was putting in more than one division and so she would have me do two or three divisions per tournament so i'd fight on one mat and then run to another mat and fight another mat and run to another mat and fight on that mat i would run around and i would win three divisions at once in a day and then i would go to school and be a loser

again so i had like alternate life where i was like this judo prodigy just kicking all kinds of ass like in the evenings and on the weekends and i would go to school and people were making fun of me for being like muscular or whatever and um it was kind of like my safe space where I was like, cool. Yeah. Yeah. And eventually it took over my whole life. So I'm just cool everywhere now. Yeah.

Well, you overcame apraxia, which is a neurological condition that makes, you know, speech and writing and learning, you know, words difficult. Wow. You did your research. Yeah, it's a motor speech disorder. Yeah. Like, what you're thinking and what your mouth does doesn't really match up. So, yeah, public speaking for WWE is really difficult. Oh, is it?

I try my best. Well, it's just because people are actively trying to distract you while you're doing it. Like, people are screaming at you while you talk. Or, like, anytime you take a breath,'ll all like scream what is that right and so like as somebody that you know if you're giving an interview or you're like at a press conference you can like flub a word and say it over again it's not a big deal but if you don't say every single thing and announce enunciate it perfectly in wwe like oh my god it's the biggest deal in the world so do they do that is are they pretty harsh about that like if you oh yeah a little promo in some way or yeah like even if you just like

slur a word or a letter or you know what i mean which is the kind of just right now the kind of thing that i do all the time and so that that kind of made it extra difficult but it's kind of what i needed because i don't know it like puts me outside my comfort zone and forces me to focus and work on it which uh it took a lot of work as a kid I had to do like speech therapy for years and all this stuff but there's like a lot of little kids out there that are dealing with the same thing so I'm like happy to be an example that you can overcome it but yeah sometimes like I get like super tongue tied or, you know, just my, there's like a disconnect between my brain and my mouth.

Well, it does. I mean, it makes sense when you have, when you struggle with that. So you end up, which I'm sure. And you end up feeling like, you know, like something less than, you know, you feel like there's something wrong with you. And then you go to judo and all of a sudden you're a winner. And then, you know, and now you're, you're a winner, you get, and you're fighting, but they also expect you to give speeches. Like it doesn't seem fair. I'm, I'm, I i'm bummed i didn't get to do like a little wrestling bit in the in the hab and habitha while you were there i was like running porsche and everybody through uh yeah no i've seen i saw i saw you and porsche you know they showed me in

porsche i had like i choreographed a whole scene with everybody but you know porsche part was the funniest it was the funniest yeah It was the funniest. Yeah. Cause I don't think, I don't think you could be a wrestler with her nails that I think that would be. No, no, no. These chicks have long ass nails.

I don't know how they do it because when I grab people, I like grab them. Yeah. I was, I was scratched the hell out of somebody if I have any kind of nail, but not all these chicks that are wrestling have long ass nails. I don't do it. I'm just, I just flashed on one, one of the things that you said, uh, that really loved

is that sometimes when you're fighting, like, you know, like your opponent, you'll like go up to, you know, grab them to then, you know, fling them across the ring. And you'll say like, you look really pretty tonight. You know, you'll give them a compliment to this person that you're supposed to hate and that you're beating up you know it's so funny because people only see your expression or how you're saying it but they can't hear what you're saying and so a lot of times you'll be in somebody's face and yelling at her when i was like your hair looks fantastic and i want to grab you by that hair and i'm gonna throw you into that corner you'll be calling the match

and then after that i'm gonna throw you over and you're going to punch me in the face. And then you're going to be up in our face, and you're going to smell how fantastic I smell tonight. And then you're going to throw me over there, and people think we're just yelling at each other, but we're calling the match to each other. Yeah, yeah. And complimenting each other. That's nice. Sometimes, you know, you'll... I bet the men don't do that.

I mean, they might, but I had a friend of mine powerbomb me the other day, and as she picked me up, about to powerbomb me, and it was about to be a really bad bomb, she goes, I love you. And then she smashes me so bad. I'm like, oh, dude.

You got a weird way of showing it. I know, but it's really fun when you're with someone in there yeah yeah being with you know you say sorry afterward my friend need me in the face the other day and um it looks so bad but the thing is like no one hits you like your friends hit you because you know like you're gonna be cool about it anyway and so like you go so much harder on your friends than than anybody else. So you know if two people

really don't like each other, they'll go extra hard. So you don't really know if somebody they have beef with each other or not. If you see people really laying into each other, they're either really pissed or they're really great friends. But they know.

We know. There's certain times where I'll say stuff just to try and make everybody else break character, like to make them laugh or something like that. We had a live show match where I think all of us were like speaking in pirate accents at each other one day. And like nobody could hear, you know. But we were all like yelling at each other like we're pirates. And then the entire match trying to make each other laugh other laugh and yeah yeah that's like the fun part do you ever like make people break do they laugh sometimes when you i don't know there was one day where i i was like i was supposed to accept the titles challenge

then we were playing around and i was like i I'm feeling spicy. And then Shana was laughing and she was like, please don't say that on TV. Please don't. And we are on TV. We just like posed. I was like meant to just, we're just trying to make each other laugh at that point. I'm like, I'm feeling spicy. Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of times that we just say shit just to try and make each other laugh.

You said, you said while we were on mars once you were talking about your husband travis brown uh mma fighter for people that don't know and that you often will be like come on let's like let's wrestle like let's fight and then he'll kind of be like no no let's just snuggle and you'll be like no all right i'll yeah they're like the same thing they're just different you know different ways of saying the same thing of like you know physical contact you know he's not into wrestling in the living room anytime i try to wrestle him he's like just love me just snuggle i get enough of that at work yeah yeah well as a teenager as a teenager like did did it was it hard like being an ass

kicker in terms of like dating or you know a romantic getting a romantic life if you know i mean i didn't really have i mean i dropped out of high school sophomore year and i never really had like a boyfriend or anything like that and um it was just that I never went to a single dance I never went to a party I just didn't have space in my life for the normal things and I was actually just telling my son the other day because he's like really getting into football and taking it seriously and and training and all this stuff but he's like missing out on a lot of things that other kids are doing because of that. And I was telling him that,

um, you know, you're going to have to miss out on the things that everybody does to be able to do the things that nobody does. And that was just kind of like in that part of my life, I was like, I'm trying to get to the Olympics and I'm not going to be able to go to parties or be a homecoming queen or anything like that

because that's the trade. So yeah, it definitely cut into my social or romantic anything, but it was worth it in the end. Okay, that's what I was going to ask. I mean, are you happy with that deal today? Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, who's sitting around thinking like, God, I wish I got to screw around more in high school. I'd be so much better off now. But I probably would have had higher standards for myself.

Start with if I did, but you know, young girl. You made all those mistakes later than most people did. Yeah, you gotta kiss, as long as you don't, like, get impregnated or marry any of the frogs, it's fine. Right, kiss them all. Who cares? They're frogs. Yeah, you can learn how to kiss on a frog.

So you ended up, you ended up, you were an Olympic medalist, and you were, were you the first American? The first American woman to win an Olympic medal in Judo since it became a fully recognized sport in 1992, which I believe it was that recently that women were fully recognized. But in 1988, it was brought on as a demonstration sport and Lynn Roche won a silver medal. So I want to always point that out. Lynn Roche did win it first, but it wasn't fully recognized at that point. Is there a feeling of what now after you, you know, you've got, you go to two Olympics and you won the medal in the second one that you were

at, right? Yeah, but I got screwed over in the first one. Okay. Okay. All right. I know. I know. I don't cut a promo here please um but i mean is

there a sense of like where do i go because your mom you know she went on to get a phd in what was it uh i got it written educational psychology yeah and and so you know she went took that and went on to you know become a phd and a and a doctor yeah and she's a world famous statistician as well wow and i could go on and on she like got a perfect score on the sads graduated college at 19 she won the world championships while she was a single mother working as an engineer in the 80s and while she was getting her phd and then went on to become a college professor and then a world famous statistician and then she started her uh ed tech startup and all this stuff anyways she's amazing and i basically could only do

the athletic stuff but she did like the athletic stuff and school and work and mom at the same time which is like kind of unbelievable and so when i kind of when i got to that point where that what now point i uh was like okay i want to have kids but i want to do wrestling because i feel like it's just i feel like i should it was like a calling for some reason it was like the universe kept poking me and just being like you should wrestle so did you have that feeling before you you started as mma fighter or no no it was after when uh when shana and jessamine were living with me and marina in uh venice we became the four horsewomen and all the stuff and shana started introducing us to

to pro wrestling and putting on tv and just kind of became like our thing that we'd relax and watch at the end of the day when we're done training and then she kind of like sure put us in and like okay this person's in a fight with this person they're mad about this and this was like when the shield was big but then yeah we started getting into it and then shana started uh wrestling and we were like you know supporting her and i was just kind of peripherally in the world and me and Trav were like okay let's have a baby is there anything like unfinished business you want to do so I was like all right I want to do wrestling for a couple months and you know it's something that you have to spend a lifetime mastering so I was like maybe I can like be a valet or help somebody out or be

tag team or something for a couple months, then go have a baby. And then they ended up saying, well, we need you from mania to mania. So it was a whole year. And then it just ended up taking a life of its own. And I ended up being better at it than I thought and and how you can chase your dreams and be a mom. So I was like, all right, I want to be that example for my baby. I want to be able to choose the breastfeeding Maria under the bleachers and like go kick ass and then go to work as an engineer and then go to training with, you know, doing pushups with her baby on her back and then go to the tournament and breastfeed her under the bleachers between matches.

I just thought that was such a cool example that I wanted to do that for Poe. I feel like I've already done that for her. Now it's just like, I think it's time to have some more babies. I think that's what's really next because my mom always told us

don't have kids young young don't get married young like like she did yeah like yeah it's doable but it's tough please don't make it harder on yourself and so yeah um i really just tried to get all of my career and achieve the things done on the front end before really getting into like the family baby marriage stuff. And so I think now I think I've gotten enough done and a hundred examples to kind of commit more to the family marriage baby stuff. But, you know, who knows? I'm still kind of like playing it by ear.

It's kind of like a, we and Shana were watching Trish Stratus the other day on the ladders. What was that? The money in the bank match where they have to climb up a ladder to reach a suitcase that is suspended. Yeah, they've done a bunch.

Yeah, that's, I've been doing that for decades. Yeah, Trish Stratus, who was like, you know, one of the early women that were big in it. She was back and doing all these kinds of crazy stunts and stuff like that. I looked over at Trina.

I'm like, we're never going to escape. Are we? They're going to Alice forever. They're so escape. The thing is, they wouldn't allow the women to do a lot of those things back then. And so dangling carrot.

I'm like, Oh, Trish, look, now you get to do a ladder match. i feel like that they're just we keep dangling those carrots in front of us as we get older i'm like well now we're gonna let you do this thing we didn't let you do we're gonna be able to wrestle for 20 minutes instead of eight wouldn't you want to come back and so i don't know maybe there is no escape but i'm hoping to uh focus more on on just you know having babies

and stuff like that because i want to have a bunch and there's just so many things that i want to do it's hard to like pick okay i have to put this aside and focus on a baby or i want to be able to take advantage of this opportunity and delay having their baby it's it's tough it's like one of those things that the men don't have to think about so much. They can just have babies and keep doing it all at the same time. Whereas you have to kind of figure out like when does what take precedent over the other. Right. Of the three of judo, MMA and wrestling, like which is your favorite and what do you get out of each one that's different than the other? Favorite. Well, I'd say the most fun is definitely wrestling um the most like exhilarating and rewarding is probably mma judo has changed a lot the rules have changed a lot is it hard to

lose in professional wrestling since it's not like a pure competition in any way like is there still part of you no it's like saying like do you feel bad that you know you fell through the dj table whereas michelle rodriguez got to get up and walk away and fast furious seven like no yeah the fight scene that i put together in 45 minutes i'm really really proud of that you, that I got to choreograph that fight scene and take falls on the marble floor and all of these things like the entertainment, like people always talk to me. Oh, I love that fight scene. And that was like my first time choreographing a fight scene on my,

on my own for like a movie. And I'm really, really proud of it. And I don't care that a show by drink is locked away. And I didn't, it doesn't even matter. Like entertainment. It's all entertainment. It's all about, was it entertaining?

I think of it like a couple of figure skating. You two together are creating something for the audience and the performance itself is, that's whether or not you win or lose together. It's not like one person wins, the other person loses. There are some people that take it a little bit too seriously and get really upset about losing but that's you know people that have never actually competed and they don't understand what actual competition is and they think they're on fucking mars and so we're not on mars okay

who cares who wins or loses it just needs to make sense for the story yeah and you know like i've lost a whole bunch of times this year i don't care and i don't even remember yeah i lost live like three times and i lost to charlotte and uh i'm pretty sure i lost another time and it doesn't even matter because it's all made up yeah you know some people are so it's a crazy world and where you're in character more days of the week than you're not and it's not like acting where you're in character more days of the week than you're not. And it's not like acting where you go from one character to another character to another character. People play one character the whole career.

And when they're walking around the street, people talk to them about their character name instead of their actual name. And some of them would rather be that character than themselves and some people are you know just in it so long and they're inadvertently method acting and become that that person and a lot of people lose themselves to that character and it's been some people change their name to be their character name and so it's a really common thing in the industry we have to actively try not to lose yourself but i think being an athlete and coming from a high level competition it's easier to not get fooled into thinking a fake competition is real but if that's the only kind of competition you've ever had yeah it can consume you mentally and yeah kind of take

over your your own identity you see it happen all the time and it's uh it happens to like really intelligent grounded people it's just it happens to like really intelligent grounded people it's just so immersive just like the mars experiment where everyone around you like if your name's lightning bolt crash you know everywhere you go they're like hey mccrash mccrash mccrash and every single person calls you mccrash it's four days a week you're walking around and going i am mccrash and then another three days a week, you're like, I'm Andy. It's sometimes it's hard to go back and forth between one or the other. So I'm kind of lucky in that. My persona is me.

Is you. And so, but it's also a little bit more difficult because like the line is a little bit more blurred from when I was Ronda Rousey, the character and Ronda Rousey myself. But that's kind of why i like to not spend too much time on that world because it gets to a point where it starts to consume you and you start just thinking more about character stuff or spills over into your free time does do do the wrestlers talk

about that like is that like a topic of commerce, you got to be careful that you don't become psychologically damaged by this. No, I think it's kind of the kind of thing that people more whisper about other people. Yeah. Instead of like bringing it up to them, be like, so-and-so is kind of sipping too much of their own Kool-Aid right now. Yeah, yeah. But it's not as common, I don't think as as it used to be I think the especially the women's locker room right now is everyone's so grounded and so cool and like really rooting for each other it's um it's very different from that what they would put over on like the diva show that it's

all cut throat and everyone against each other it really feels like the women are all really coming together and just kind of fighting for time on the card versus the men. You know, the men are given so much more time on every single match and every single, like, you know, oh, we want to do a spot on the table. Nope, sorry, the guys are doing

a spot on the table. You can't do that. You know, we want to have a 15-minute match. Oh, you know, sorry, but the guys' match ran over and we're going to have to cut your time three times and you need to make want to have a 15 minute match. Oh, you know, sorry, but, uh, the guys match ran over and we're going to have to cut your time three times. You need to make the match like a third, as long as, as it was, you need to figure that out within the next five minutes. And then we get out there, you have to like, basically,

people always make fun of how fast I go on my entrance when I'm walking in. But the thing is the entrance cuts into your time for the match itself. So I'm like, fuck that. I don't give a shit about my entrance i'm gonna get there as quick as possible because it's eating into my match time hey i'm ronda like how the fuck how long do you want to do this i'm going in there start the fucking clock they've already cut my time three times and other girls are coming like chop chop bitches get in the ring this is eating into our time they've already cut it three times. Yeah. But the women are going through together. And I feel like all the women come and watch each other's matches.

And they're, like, all really supportive of each other. And we really feel like it's, like, us against the machine, you know? Yeah. And it's really bonding for all of us. And a lot of times when we're dealing with those kind of issues where it's not like cutthroat it's like a really i don't know we're all like kind of in it together and i i it makes you more motivated to to do more because you want every single woman's match on the card to stand out which is crazy because i see the numbers for the show and the women can't like consistently do the highest

numbers on the show and we're consistently marginalized um with the amount of time and attention that we're given and the amount of you know effort that we're given from the writing team a lot of times we just kind of hear what we're gonna do that day and there's no correspondence back and forth there's no like you know let's talk about this earlier in the week and figure out what we're going to do let's plan for what we're going to do next year which they do for a lot of the other men but they don't work for us so we're constantly making chicken shit in the chicken salad and man the girls are still fucking killing it i'm so proud of all of them and we're all like i don't know really banded together and trying to

make ourselves stand out as much as we can with as little as we're thrown can't you tell my loves are growing you know this this podcast is about these questions and the last one is what have you learned learned? Like, is there kind of, yeah, like, is there something, you know, when people tell you like, you know, whether it's advice or whatever, you know, is there some, some, something you can pass on to people? Well, it seems kind of like cliche and corny,

but if the journey isn't rewarding in itself, then the reward, the reward isn't going to make up for it. And I was going to, you peak in judo in your mid-20s. And I had already been to two Olympics. I won a bronze. And I was favored to win, be the first American ever to win the Olympics in judo in the next Olympics. And I was absolutely miserable training. the first American ever to win the Olympics in judo in the next Olympics.

And I was absolutely miserable training. And I quit and I walked away and I did MMA. And everybody said it was the stupidest thing ever. And, you know, it was a big wasted opportunity and how dare I do that. And it ended up being the best thing that I ever did. But it was only because I won an Olympic bronze medal. And I remembered how it felt. And I knew that winning in the gold wouldn't be that much different. And I realized that spending four years being miserable so you could possibly be happy for a couple of months isn't worth it. And so a lot of people think like, okay, I got to train and I got to stick my nose in the dirt and

I got to do all these things and be miserable in order to get this thing. But if that process isn't rewarding in itself and making you happy, it's not going to be worth it. And you're not going to train or work as hard as you possibly can because you need to be passionate about what you do and actually enjoy it. And so I think one thing I've learned is that enjoying the pursuit itself is so much more important than what the reward is. Well, this interview was very rewarding for me.

How about that for a segue? Thanks. I learned that in podcast school. Well, Rhonda, I love you and I'm so happy to see you again. And it was great being on mars with you and great talking to you today uh and thank you and thank all of you for listening and i'll be back next week with more of this bullshit well thank you so much for having me and guys better keep listening or else I'll come find you. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, listen. Bye.

Bye. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Daugherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddie Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl.

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