In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, I sit down with Olympic Gold Medalist and two-time PFL Light Heavyweight Champion Briana Vellian. Briana talks about her transition from the boxing ring to the MMA cage, her new found interest in the PFL, and why she thinks she's a good enough fighter to make a move into mixed martial arts. We also talk about what it's like being the only American woman to have won an Olympic Gold medal in multiple weight classes at multiple different weight classes, and what it takes to be the best at what she does. I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts! If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and also, Im gonna be giving out some gifts to the best REVIEWS on the next episode! 5 stars is much appreciated and really helps spread the word about the podcast. Cheers! -Jon Sorrentino The Joe Rogans Experience Podcast by Night, All Day All Day, by Night - by Day - by Night All Day All Day by Night by Day by Day, By Night by Night by Night By Day by Day - All Day By Day By Night By Night, By Day, All By Night - By Day by Morning By Night All By Day - By Night - By Morning, By Morning by Morning, by Evening, By Evening, by Afternoon, By Afternoon - Afternoon - By Evening - By Sunset, by Sunset, By Late Night, by evening, by Sleep, By Bedtime, by Bedtime - By Sleep, by Rest, By Rest, by Late Night , By Day & Early Night, - Evening, , By Late Nights, & Early Nights - Late Nights I ll See You, I'll See You By Sleep & Late Nights? - Early Nights By Day / Early Nights, By Early Nights? - By Anytime - -By Day, By Evening Have a Good Night by Sleep or Early Nights ? Sleep, Have Anytime By Day? In the Morning or Early Night By Day/Late Nights by Late Nights / Early Night ? -Late Nights? | Early Nights/Early Nights? / Late Nights/ & Late Nights |
00:00:47.000You've gone multiple weight classes, and now you're considering fighting in MMA. You kind of cleared out boxing in a lot of ways.
00:00:56.000It's always something more to be accomplished in boxing, but I'm venturing off into MMA because I really want to see, am I as great as I think I am?
00:02:35.000When they got that pad up there and they like kick it, I just do the forearm and my leg can go up there over and over and over again just from the stretching and actually being a bit more flexible than what I was before.
00:02:47.000So I stretch, but I stretch more serious now.
00:03:41.000But one good thing about it is when you get that hot and sweaty, your muscles become really pliable and you can make really good gains that way, like in terms of flexibility.
00:03:50.000Oh wow, maybe I should try it with Sakina.
00:03:53.000Yeah, I always find that I'm way more flexible in hot yoga class than I am anywhere else.
00:07:21.000No, so for MMA, I was just like, I already had signed a contract with the PFL. And now I'm like, okay, what do you have to do for the five Ps to play in effect?
00:07:31.000And I was like, I need to get the best trainer.
00:07:33.000And I just remember like in 2016, me and Johnny Bones, we were talking at the ESPYs and he was like, yo, you'd be the perfect boxer to come over to MMA. And I was like...
00:07:54.000So that's a perfect age because you still are capable of getting elite at all the arts.
00:08:00.000You could get elite at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
00:08:02.000You can get elite at striking with kicking and Muay Thai.
00:08:06.000You're young enough that you can do all that shit.
00:08:09.000Yeah, I think it's just all about, like, one, having the right teachers, and also getting in there and doing it, but, I mean, having a body to do it, like, I'm glad that I didn't wait until I was, like, 35, you know, 36, because then I would just be starting.
00:08:24.000It would set me back, and it would be like, I'm going in here starting new, and my body isn't even in its prime.
00:08:29.000Like, right now, I don't think that my body has peaked yet.
00:08:32.000Like, where I've been as strong as I can be, as fast as I can be, I still think, like, I'm like right there.
00:08:38.000I just haven't touched where I'm like, okay, this is the best my body can be at.
00:09:35.000So maybe their body doesn't quite work as well as it did when they were 24, but they're a better athlete at 30 or 32 just because they know what to do and how to do it better.
00:09:44.000They have a better communication with their body.
00:09:48.000But that's like what you're doing by doing yoga and even by expanding into martial arts.
00:10:27.000So now, starting back after my birthday in April...
00:10:32.000I'll be up in Jackson Wink for three weeks, but I'll only go home weekend.
00:10:36.000So I'll be there three weeks, then go home for Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
00:10:40.000Fight back Sunday, be there three weeks again until I have my actual fight.
00:10:44.000So is the plan to continue boxing as well as fighting in MMA? Yeah, the overall goal for me is to be champion in boxing and be a champion in MMA at the same time.
00:10:55.000Once that's done, then I don't know what else I could possibly do.
00:11:00.000Like, that'd be like the end game for me.
00:11:03.000So, I know I can be champion in boxing, which is very easy to do because I already accomplished so much in boxing, and the girls just can't fuck with me in boxing.
00:12:34.000It was like, I had watched film of her, and I had my eyes set on her since I was 17, before I even had turned pro.
00:12:41.000And I knew then, when I was 17, I could have beat her.
00:12:43.000So now that I'm, you know, I was like 22 or whatever, 23, it was like...
00:12:49.000What the hell do she do that make you guys think she can beat me?
00:12:51.000Like, either I'm just a terrible boxer, or you guys just, I don't know, think she's that good.
00:12:57.000I think sometimes when someone's overwhelming like you are, people try to pump up challengers in a way that they don't even really believe.
00:13:15.000There were certain dudes that I knew they were going to fight an accomplished champion and you knew they were fucked.
00:13:21.000And so you have to kind of play their strong points, but if you caught me alone, and it was just you and me, and it was like, no recording equipment?
00:13:45.000If Jon Jones is fighting someone and I think Jon Jones is going to slaughter him, I'm going to point out the guy's strong points.
00:13:52.000I'll point out Jon's strong points and I'll point out the guy's strong points and what he has to do and what he can do and where he excels.
00:17:56.000And it's really interesting when she was training, because her work ethic, you could see it when she was training other fighters.
00:18:05.000She demanded some serious work from them, and she had so much intensity.
00:18:11.000It was only one thing she said one time, because I watched a few of her documentaries when she was training James Kirkland and training herself.
00:18:16.000She said, you want to break a fighter down and then build them back up.
00:18:22.000And that's something I've never been a real fan of.
00:19:38.000It's just more athletes, you don't really fine greats, you know what I mean?
00:19:42.000It's more athletes who really complain to get out of training and fake injuries than you have those who don't fake injuries and actually take the sport serious.
00:19:52.000But is that really prevalent to the point where they have to find people at the Olympics?
00:22:41.000Just the way that I like to speak things into existence is, I told myself all the time, 2016 Olympics is going to be way easier than 2012. And that was my mindset.
00:22:52.000So when he came to me and said that, it was like, whoa, wrong engine, man.
00:23:18.000So this is like what you mean when you're talking about Ann Wolfe's philosophy of breaking someone down physically.
00:23:24.000You don't think it's wise to break someone down physically.
00:23:28.000No, I think it's wise to work hard and, you know, push your limits.
00:23:32.000But when somebody's breaking somebody down to where they, like, when they go home, they feel like they can't walk, their body is sore, you know what I mean?
00:24:03.000You know, if I had to go to the gym and punch the back, but my legs is sore as hell, my legs got to hold me up.
00:24:09.000So it's like, I don't even want to be here.
00:24:11.000And if I go to the gym and let's say my arms are so tired, but my legs is full of energy, it's still discouraging because it's like, okay, my legs are holding up, but my punches won't.
00:24:22.000So I like to feel good during training.
00:24:25.000I feel like that's when you get the best results.
00:24:27.000Do you think there's a fine line between pushing yourself so that your body keeps getting stronger and so your endurance keeps increasing your capacity, but knowing when you're just working too hard and breaking things down and it's not beneficial at all and you actually lose progress?
00:26:00.000So now when I'm at the gym sometime, I'm like, yo, I'm not ever going to train that hard again.
00:26:08.000He's like, I'm going to train, but I have like, I just have like that I have that cutoff switch where it's like, look, I know that this is too much.
00:26:17.000Like, I tell my coaches now, like, see, my coach has to really set up sparring for me because I'm like, I won't spar.
00:28:14.000For some athletes, they need people to push them in order to reach their full potential.
00:28:18.000But you obviously understand yourself.
00:28:21.000You obviously know your body very, very well.
00:28:24.000And you've shown that you rise to the occasion in fights and that you've been in great condition in fights and that you put in the work necessary to be great.
00:28:34.000So do you think that sometimes coaches have this almost like...
00:28:37.000They have a one-size-fits-all philosophy.
00:28:41.000Maybe this dude doesn't work hard enough, so they're going to push him until he breaks, and then they try to apply that shit to you, and you're like, hey, hey, hey, I know what I'm doing.
00:35:56.000Then as he gets older, fights far more defensively, but talks way more shit and shows all his watches and shows all his money and shows all his jets and all that shit.
00:36:06.000And people want him to lose because he's so flashy.
00:36:10.000But people were paying money to see all these different people beat him.
00:36:14.000So he made more money by fighting defensively responsibly and by fighting...
00:38:03.000Because Floyd, the way that his mind works, the way that mine works, if I get in there with you one time, I learn you, the next fight will be easier.
00:38:11.000Don't you think Canelo's way different now, though?
00:38:14.000He's way different, but still cannot underestimate the skill of Floyd.
00:38:59.000Like, look, you can't have an excuse of, oh, Pacquiao's old, but then Pacquiao comes back and beat Keith Thurman, and everybody's like, oh, Pacquiao's not old no more.
00:43:07.000And that's probably what led me to do MMA. After not fighting for 14 months and having the opportunity to come with MMA, it's like, okay, now I get double opportunities to impress my fans now to do MMA and then also do boxing.
00:43:20.000It's like double after not fighting for a long time.
00:44:59.000And Lucia Riker, who people still don't know.
00:45:02.000But I feel like if they would put the backing behind women's boxing to where it was a lot of good girls who were good but never got that TV exposure.
00:45:12.000I mean, we're talking about Kalisha West.
00:45:14.000You probably never heard of her, but she was a hell of a fighter.
00:45:42.000Right, but we weren't given an opportunity early on to where if we would have fought on TV on every man's car, have a woman undercard or something, women's boxing would be a lot bigger.
00:45:51.000So even though people look at me like, oh, you're the biggest women's boxing star that they have, I had the Olympics, and now the professionals, I had Showtime, I fought on The Zone, I fought on HBO. I've had all these different opportunities to be in front of so many different eyeballs to where now...
00:46:07.000And I also do other stuff outside of boxing that other women fighters are just not going to do.
00:46:17.000I call out Amanda Nunes to a boxing match.
00:46:21.000I mean, shit like that that women fighters just don't feel like they need to do or that they want to do because it's not looked at as ladylike.
00:46:29.000You know, talking trash is not ladylike.
00:48:10.000If you think about how many people knew Sugar Ray Leonard when he was at the top and compare it to today, I think there's almost too much shit going on today.
00:48:17.000It's too many networks and too many built organizations.
00:48:21.000Yeah, there's so much going on out there.
00:48:33.000But the average person, if he was around in the 1980s, when Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran and all these household names, everybody would know who he is.
00:48:44.000It would be like Ray Boom Boom Mancini.
00:48:46.000It would be like one of those guys that everybody – it would be like – you think of like boxers that were famous boxers back then.
00:48:52.000They were household names because there was less entertainment.
00:48:55.000There was less stuff going on and there was no internet.
00:48:58.000So if they had someone like Alexis Arguello fight on ABC Wide World of Sports, like that guy was a superstar.
00:49:07.000I don't think even like big time boxers today, I don't think they have the same sort of appeal in terms of like the general public as they did in the past just because the public's overwhelmed by things to pay attention to.
00:49:24.000There's so much music and there's so many athletes and so many sports.
00:49:45.000They have to be someone who's just undeniable.
00:49:47.000Two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated professional boxer, dominates in multiple weight classes, now is thinking about fighting MMA. All eyes are on you.
00:49:56.000But in terms of boxing, no one's saying, hey...
00:50:01.000You know, we got to get Claressa Shields to fight this girl.
00:50:04.000It's not like the Christy Martin, Lucia Riker days, where there was one girl who was getting all the play because she was on the Mike Tyson undercards, which was Christy Martin.
00:50:14.000But there was this one girl that was in the shadows that the boxing fans knew was a killer.
00:50:19.000And they was like, boy, I really would love to see that fight.
00:51:02.000You know, like, they'll put other guys on the undercard of Earl Spence, Deontay Wilder, Manny Pacquiao, but for a woman, I mean, I would love to fight on the undercard of Canelo, the undercard of Anthony Joshua.
00:52:11.000It's a mistake by boxing and boxing promoters that they haven't figured out a way to do it in the same way that MMA fighters have because clearly there's a lot of attention paid to female MMA fighters.
00:53:03.000Yeah, like me coming to your job, I'm like, hey, Joe, I'm going to do 20 minutes of work today.
00:53:07.000You're going to do 36, but I want them to pay me the same as they're paying you.
00:53:12.000And you're like, you only came here for 20 minutes, and I've been here 36. Right, but in your business, you get paid directly proportionate, if you have a good agent and a good manager, directly proportionate to how much people are willing to pay to see you.
00:53:30.000Because if you want to look up something right now, if you look up Clarissa Shields' ratings against Hannah Gabriels, it will show you 430,000 views, 410,000 views.
00:53:44.000Adrian Broner's last fight on Showtime was 288k views, but he got paid $2 million.
00:53:51.000Well, he said on TV it was $13 million, but I looked it up and it said $2 million.
00:53:57.000In my fight against Hannah Gabriels, I got paid $150,000.
00:54:03.000Well, that's unfortunate, but I also think that the Adrian Broner fight was a big disappointment in terms of the amount of people that watched it.
00:54:43.000When you try to talk to Showtime about it, do you ever have conversations with executives about it or do you leave it all to the managers and the agents?
00:54:52.000You know, I've had conversations with, I think I had maybe a few conversations with Steven Espinosa who works with Showtime and I've said like, you know, I'll do like some commentating and stuff like that to keep my face in the public as I'm not fighting.
00:55:07.000So people can still know like, okay, this is Clarissa Shields.
00:55:11.000But, um, other than that, I just said, like, could you, you know, I've said, like, you know, I noticed that you guys promoted my fight with Hannah Gabriels for four weeks, but you guys promote, you know, Danny Garcia and Earl Spence fights for eight.
00:55:25.000But you guys talked to me about the numbers.
00:55:28.000Like, okay, well, maybe if you guys gave me eight weeks of promotion like you do the men, maybe I get higher numbers.
00:55:35.000And that's probably the only two conversations that I've had with him.
00:57:56.000One of the things is when you find out that Floyd's making $50 million for a fight or $100 million for a fight, people watch more because of that, because they recognize that it's very high stakes.
00:58:31.000It seemed like I became more of a superstar.
00:58:35.000And I hate that I do this, but with numbers, Showtime, when I was fighting with Showtime, when it was fight week, I would gain about 25,000 followers on Instagram.
00:58:47.000Instagram isn't everything, but that's just how I compare my numbers.
00:58:50.000This fight, without Showtime, I gained 15,000 followers just off of me.
00:58:57.000Fighting on a network that's not super known for women's boxing.
00:59:02.000It was on FITETV. You can still go on there and buy the pay-per-view if you want to.
00:59:08.000But I looked at the numbers and I'm like, I was able to get 13,000 new people and eyes on me doing my own pay-per-view show compared to getting the 20,000, 25,000 that I would get from being on Showtime.
00:59:22.000Does it frustrate you that you have to think about all this kind of promotion shit that you can't just concentrate on the fighting?
00:59:28.000But something that somebody really important told me, his name is Andre Darrell, he said, you are the person for the job.
00:59:36.000You know, this is not the job for nobody else.
00:59:38.000God put you here for you to fight this fight.
00:59:41.000Like, not for you just to win the fights because you do that easy, but he's like, in order for women's boxing to ever be equal, you as the person to make you equal.
00:59:49.000So, sometimes I look at it as if it's a burden, and he just said to me, There's no other person for the job than you.
00:59:57.000So you kind of just got to accept your role and just make the best out of it.
01:00:02.000But I would love to just focus on fighting though.
01:00:04.000But that's just not the way that the world is set up for me.
01:00:07.000Well, you've been successful focusing on everything.
01:00:11.000Yeah, see, the fights are easy, but I still need me some money.
01:00:14.000The fights are easy, but I still need me some money.
01:00:26.000So, talk me through, when did you decide to make a transition and try to fight in MMA? And why did you decide to sign with the PFL? Well, I had been off the ring from last year,
01:02:47.000And to hear what they were saying, you know, just about, like, me coming to the PFL, you know, me having an option.
01:02:55.000If I wanted to fight in the tournament next year or if I didn't, you know, helping me find trainers, making a three-year contract, what I would get paid this year versus next year is a big jump.
01:03:06.000And, you know, just somebody who's also putting money behind me, you know, um...
01:03:12.000Every month, like, looking out for me.
01:03:14.000Like, if rather I'm doing MMA this month or next month, I still get paid every month.
01:04:27.000Kayla Harrison, coming from that judo background, I mean, she's a beast of a judoka.
01:04:35.000She's really, really talented with that.
01:04:37.000And with you, with this incredible record in boxing and such accolades in boxing, the two of you together, that's a legitimate super fight down the road.
01:04:46.000It didn't be the first time that two-time Olympic gold medalists ever fought against each other.
01:05:45.000Like, I like when people compare the fight and say, oh, like, people think right now that if me and her got, like, if we was to fight, that I would win.
01:05:52.000And people think that some people think that she would win.
01:05:55.000But it's like, for me, being super honest with myself, it's like, would I go in there and just try to wrestle with her?
01:06:10.000So me being smart is like I need to learn all of that stuff so that no matter what happens in the fight, I can make sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do to get the win.
01:06:19.000And that's how I feel about all the opponents.
01:06:20.000Like there's girls who are on a lower scale right now.
01:07:35.000So I'm going to train as hard as I can this year and get my feet wet and train and get the experience.
01:07:41.000And then we'll see what our decision is next year.
01:07:45.000So you're going to continue boxing while this is all happening.
01:07:49.000How are you going to divide up your training?
01:07:51.000Are you just going to, like, when you have a boxing match, set aside whatever amount of time you need, six, eight weeks, whatever you decide for training, just only box, and then as soon as that's over, then you get back to your MMA training?
01:11:03.000And he started drilling me, like, Like, the coaches would just sit on the side and just watch us for three, four hours, and they would see, like, I'm full of energy.
01:11:13.000And, you know, he was teaching me stuff, and Coach Wink would come in a little bit.
01:11:18.000Sometimes Coach Jackson would come in, but sometimes it was just me and Johnny, and they would be just kind of...
01:11:24.000Just looking at greatness from the outside, and they would never give me any, you know, crap after.
01:11:30.000But like my first day, going to Jackson Wing Gym, I looked at the cages and stuff, and I was walking to the gym, to the cage, and I thought to myself, I was like, what the fuck am I doing here?
01:13:33.000And he said you're worried about somebody hitting you in the face, but you got to realize that they got to make it past your feet to then get you to the face.
01:13:44.000A lot of just keeping your feet there, keeping your hands up, being defensive, and knowing what to do when they do get past your feet or what to do.
01:14:15.000You understand your body at a very, very high level.
01:14:18.000I think, like I said earlier about whatever you want to do in life, if you become an elite boxer like you have, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, I think you could do anything.
01:14:27.000It's just a matter of if you put the same drive and focus and dedication that you've done to boxing.
01:14:33.000You could apply that to anything, whether it's you want to become a dedicated grappler.
01:14:37.000I think you could be a world-class grappler, 100%.
01:14:45.000I think I'm supposed to fight in boxing again, like September, maybe December.
01:14:50.000So this time I have here from April to September, December, it's really going to be focused on MMA. So I'm putting in a time for it, but then it's still just like...
01:15:02.000Just got to see how much I can consume.
01:15:04.000Because some days they teach me so much.
01:15:32.000And when you're training for ground fighting, do you ever think of yourself as maybe competing in a wrestling tournament or jiu-jitsu tournament or something like that someday?
01:15:44.000I don't look at that because Coach Tusa, who's my MMA coach, MMA jiu-jitsu coach, and Coach Jackson and Coach Wink, they said the best MMA fighters are the ones who know how to mix everything up together.
01:15:56.000So sometimes you go into just wrestling, then you start getting into wrestling mode, and then you do jiu-jitsu and you start doing jiu-jitsu.
01:16:29.000Like, we want to teach you jujitsu and you to learn it, but you're not going to learn like the regular person will learn it.
01:16:34.000You're learning strictly for MMA. And so, just learning that, it's like, once you get more profound in MMA and you learn how to mix stuff up and you have enough jujitsu to get you...
01:16:48.000When you're against high-level fighters who know this, then we can start getting you more experience in jiu-jitsu.
01:16:54.000But right now, we want you just to do it.
01:18:27.000Some days it's fun and some days I'm like, man, I can't wait to this hour and two hours and I'm going to get the hell out of here.
01:18:34.000So are you doing any live jujitsu roles with other people other than the coach or are you just doing it only with the coach right now?
01:18:42.000I've done some kickboxing and sparring with other fighters.
01:18:45.000I haven't done anything in jiu-jitsu yet, but that's because of the timing too.
01:18:50.000Once we were really starting to get into it, I had my boxing match get scheduled.
01:18:54.000To me, I had to make that be more important than MMA at the time.
01:18:58.000I saw you throwing some kicks and I saw you moving around.
01:19:03.000Does it feel weird to you to be sparring at a distance with kicks?
01:19:08.000The difference of distance between boxing and kicks is a couple of feet.
01:19:13.000Does it feel weird to you to know that you could hit someone much further away or they could hit you much further away than normally you would have to think of in a boxing situation?
01:20:14.000Yeah, we've been doing simulations to where I'm in there, I'm shadowboxing, in an MMA stance and throwing kicks and stuff, and then coaches say sprawl, or coaches say, you know, go to the cage and work your way up from the cage, or he'll tackle me and I gotta figure out how to get him off me and get up.
01:20:52.000But I'm going to let the coaches figure that stuff out on what they want me to do, how they want me to do it, and let them game plan because I don't know MMA better than them.
01:21:10.000So if you had your options, if you had a magic wand and you could wave it, you would just rather have female boxing get the attention that it deserves?
01:21:23.000Before I had a boyfriend, before I even knew what anything in life really was, boxing is the first thing that I ever really truly loved that loved me back.
01:21:33.000You know, so boxing was my first love.
01:21:35.000You know, MMA, it's kind of adding to my greatest woman of all time statement, the quote.
01:23:08.000Like, When she goes in there and she knocks out a girl, like the whole world just started like, they all started tweeting me for no certain reason.
01:23:17.000Oh, Amanda Nunez will beat you in a boxing match.
01:23:19.000And it's like, look, I got two Olympic gold medals in boxing.
01:24:56.000But I don't do, like, really, really heavy weight.
01:24:58.000Like, when I do, like, the light stuff, I build, like, I told you, like, on a micro scale, I build the small muscles so they can make the bigger muscles do more.
01:25:07.000Do you have a strength and conditioning coach?
01:25:29.000After not boxing for a year, it was like once I come out of this whole weighting thing, I want to come back out with some steam.
01:25:35.000You know, I want to come back out with some power.
01:25:37.000And so he started building up, like you said, my shoulders, my triceps, my biceps, even just my forearm, you know, just building up that stuff.
01:25:46.000But I would also do like a lot of HIIT cardio too.
01:25:49.000But when it came to strength, some days I'm like, today we're going to do...
01:27:49.000And he kept allowing her to hold throughout the whole fight.
01:27:51.000So every time I rocked her, there she was holding me.
01:27:54.000And I was trying to figure out how not to get held and how to land more shots.
01:27:57.000But I mean, really, she was just a professional survivor.
01:28:01.000So that's what I have to deal with for the fight.
01:28:03.000Do you think you're going to have to do anything different in terms of strength and conditioning for MMA when you consider all the grappling, the five minute rounds?
01:29:37.000Like I have like my own, like I said, I know my body better than anybody else.
01:29:41.000So when it comes to like strength and conditioning stuff, I always trust my own judgment for the past however many years that I've been boxing.
01:29:49.000So I will hear their advice on it and hear what they have to say.
01:29:54.000Holly invited me to come work out with her doing some of her strength training, but I haven't went with her yet.
01:29:58.000So maybe I can go with her when I get back, but we will see what happens.
01:31:17.000You just know what to do and what's worked for you in the past?
01:31:19.000I think I've tested things on me, you know, to see like, okay, like something that's big for me is just sleep.
01:31:26.000I have like big insomnia, so I take a lot of, I take melatonin at night, majority every night, because I'll stay up to 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, just kind of On my phone, wrestling is stinking.
01:32:42.000It lets me know, hey, today's the day you can break records or today's the day you need to get more sleep or whatever.
01:32:48.000Do you ever try to leave your phone alone at night?
01:32:51.000Because they say that's one of the things that keeps people awake, is staring at screens.
01:32:55.000They say that when it gets to a certain point in the night, like if you know you're going to go to bed in two hours or so, you really shouldn't look at any screens.
01:33:04.000Yeah, that's why people wear like blue light blocking lenses and it's the kind of light that comes from screens It fucks with you because your body thinks it's night.
01:33:16.000It's real weird because your brain produces melatonin Matt Frazier was here the other day who is five-time world CrossFit champion and one of the things that he said he has is He has an artificial sun by his bed.
01:36:27.000After a hard sporing session, I go home for a couple hours and I hit up my masseuse Brenda like, hey Brenda, can you come over here and massage me for an hour?
01:36:35.000Like, this is hurting, that's hurting.
01:36:36.000And she comes over and get the knots out of my traps, knots out my legs and everything and just, I can go to sleep and have a good night.
01:36:44.000But I hate going to bed feeling like I'm sore, I'm hurting.
01:38:31.000The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
01:38:34.000And I think the problem is when there's a person like you who's a champion The way you dedicate yourself to fighting, you expect this kind of dedication in life.
01:43:42.000People get addicted to those things and you get addicted to like reading responses.
01:43:46.000You get addicted to like you say something to them and then they say something back to you and you think about what the fuck they say and then you have to check it.
01:43:53.000No, I just feel like sometimes I need the doubters.
01:43:55.000You know, I need to hear what they're saying so I can prove them wrong.
01:43:59.000I'm sure you're gonna hear them no matter what.
01:44:01.000Yeah, but it's still like some of them, especially like, let's say Eddie Hearn.
01:46:54.000I mean, people can talk all the shit they want about MMA promoters, but MMA promoters, there's no way they have a worse reputation than boxing promoters.
01:47:41.000So it's like I can't even think about UFC. What I love, I think in three years I would have a better chance at beating Amanda Nunes than beating her than I do right now.
01:47:52.000Definitely with what I know and what she knows.
01:47:56.000But like I said, the more experience I get, the more comfortable I get, the more I learn all the different disciplines, it'll be a stronger argument within the next couple of years.
01:48:05.000I think you could be a huge superstar in the sport, and I think if you get into the UFC, that's the best chance for becoming a huge superstar.
01:48:11.000I think the PFL is making some good moves, and I think Bellator is making some good moves too, but at the end of the day, the UFC is the biggest organization in the world.
01:48:21.000I like that you are with the PFL for now.
01:48:58.000You should have another UFC fight before you fight the champion.
01:49:01.000Yeah, but it was kind of like the Conor McGregor thing, where he went in, he fought against the best in boxing, so they really wanted to get that win back for MMA. That's what I think, because I was like, what?
01:51:02.000It was off of like, we had been kind of messaging back and forth a little bit, but I think it was kind of like a wonder of hers if she could, you know.
01:52:30.000Well, I sparred with guy MMA fighters who were from the Michigan area, but not up on the profile of Chris Cyborg.
01:52:38.000Did you feel like there was a lot of tension in the room when that was happening because she was trying to test herself against the best female boxer?
01:52:46.000I don't feel tension or feel pressure.
01:52:48.000But did you feel like it from them that this was a big moment?
01:55:41.000But I think that they kind of wanted me to get the 145. So the PFL is really the only option right now in terms of that weight class, right?
01:55:48.000No, because I could have got to 45, but I don't want to.
01:55:57.000I walk around at 70, 75. That's not something that I personally want, and I haven't been at 140 anything since I was 16 years old, so it's not something that I want to do.
01:56:08.000Yeah, you feel like you'll be weakened?
01:57:14.000I feel like 60 has some of the most skilled girls in boxing, but the weight class 135 and 140, 147, they kind of say that the girls have better skills.
01:57:24.000I feel like they're just looking at smaller women and they feel like it's more attractive or something.
01:57:38.000Well, listen, Claressa, you're a champion in life and you're just, in my opinion, one of the most exciting entrants into MMA. I'm excited that you're doing it because I've always liked to see elite athletes that are at the top of the food chain in their sports come over and,
01:57:54.000you know, we really haven't had anybody like you that was that good at boxing and that dominant as a professional enter into MMA. So it's exciting.
01:58:03.000I had thought Floyd was going to come over and fight against Conor.
01:59:13.000And if anybody has a chance, you are, in my opinion, you're the frontrunner for a woman that can enter into boxing or enter into MMA from boxing and really elevate the sport.