In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the UFC's highest-rated and most in-demand jiu-jitsu coach, Dana White, joins the show to talk about his recent victory over Amanda Penn in the UFC 246 main event. He also talks about his thoughts on UFC 246 and how he felt about his opponent, Amanda Penn. And of course, he talks about the crazy things he did to prepare for the fight, and what it was like to be in the octagon with the greatest jiu jitsu coach in the history of the sport. Also, he gives us a little bit of advice on how we can prepare for UFC 246, and how we should be preparing for UFC Fight Night in the future, and why we should all be doing what we do to prepare to be ready for the next fight. And he also gives us some advice on what we should and shouldn't be doing to get ready for a UFC fight and why it's important to be prepared for it and why you should be prepared to get up and get ready to get your jiujitsu practice in for it! This episode is a must-listen episode, and you won't want to miss this one! Subscribe to the show on iTunes, Podcoin, Strava, or wherever else you get your stuff, and don't forget to rate, review and review the show! If you like what you're listening, share it with a friend, tell them about it on Apple Podcasts! or whatever else they're listening to it on their social media platforms they might be listening to you! Thanks for listening, and spread the word to your friends about this podcast! - it's the best podcast in the world! Cheers, Cheers Cheers! Cheers - Cheers - Joe Rogans and Cheers. - Tom Bells Podcast - Rory Mcgregor, Rory, Rory Mclean, AKA, and much more! xoxo, Jon Rocha, Tom Hooper "The Realest Podcast of the Week: The Realest Athlete in the World" - Tom's Podcasts Podcasts: The Best Joes Podcasts of the World - Tom & Rory McElmore, Jake's Joady, the Realest Joes, the Best Athlete of the Day, the Joes' Best Podcasts, and the Best Jokes of the Night, and More!
00:00:15.000I don't think that's technically an NFT. It's like a digital representation of the NFT. He gave me an NFT too, but you have to put that in an NFT wallet.
00:03:15.000You can't describe what that's like to watch because it's hard to believe that it's happening.
00:03:24.000I felt like if you had a chance to beat her, it would be in a scramble, you would catch her and submit her in a grappling exchange, wear her down and submit her.
00:03:31.000But to see you standing in the middle of Octagon and smashing her with a jab, it was like, ah!
00:03:54.000But I knew stylistically that I have the perfect style of fighting to beat her.
00:04:00.000And because there's, for example, I'm not the type to run around the ring the whole time and do the point sparring thing and go to decision.
00:04:06.000It's like one of us is coming out of here and that's it.
00:04:08.000That's just the way that my fighting style is.
00:04:15.000So I'm not the type of person to run away in the fight.
00:04:17.000I'm the type of person to meet that fire head on and match it with my own fire.
00:04:21.000And I knew that that was how I was going to win.
00:04:24.000And so that's pretty much all I did is just game plan that specific type of you're going to be in the pocket, you're going to have to meet this fire, and you absolutely cannot shy away from it.
00:04:34.000Well, you said it leading up to the fight that you're going to drown her.
00:04:54.000And in the press conference, Amanda sang.
00:04:57.000That I'm next and then Rhonda got to cut the line and you know Rhonda had just got knocked out by Holly Holm and instead of her you know having to fight somebody else she got an immediate title shot and she got to cut the line and I was like that was my fight she's the champ said that I was next and so Rhonda came in she got knocked out and then I you know I got put to the back of the line again but I was constantly saying even when Rhonda was champ and I won the ultimate fighter I kept saying I want to fight Rhonda I want to fight Rhonda and they wouldn't they wouldn't give me that fight But the fact that she knocked out Rhonda helped
00:06:14.000If I can get people emotionally invested in me, whether it's in my successes or in my losses, whatever it is, as long as you're watching and as long as you're, you know, gripping your seat at the end of your seat and freaking out, I want to invoke that emotion in people.
00:06:25.000And that's why I love fighting, I think, is because, you know, whether you're invested in the loss or the success, you're watching and you're, like, feeling some type of way and your heart's, you know, going through your throat and to get that reaction from people and to see the, you know...
00:07:27.000All you're thinking about is what's happening right in front of you.
00:07:31.000And because of your effort, because of what you accomplished that night, you change the way people think about what's possible and not possible.
00:07:39.000That's everything we want from a fight.
00:07:45.000You were counted out by so many people.
00:07:47.000You fought the greatest of all time and you fucked her up.
00:07:50.000And the way you did it, the whole world, everybody that watched that was like, holy shit, the world is a different place now.
00:07:58.000Yeah, it just goes to show you how strong the mind is and how, you know, it's going to sound corny, but my mom always used to tell me, you can do anything you set your mind to.
00:08:20.000You know, some old lady is not going to be obviously a world champion in the UFC, but she could find something that she's passionate about.
00:08:27.000She can pursue that with her whole heart and she can achieve whatever that goal is for whatever it is that she wants, you know?
00:08:44.000You know, a lot of people never find the groove.
00:08:46.000They never find the thing that excites them and then never realize that facing that fear and then challenging themselves actually feels good because you accomplish it.
00:08:55.000You get through it and then on the other end of it you feel better.
00:08:59.000That's something that people, that everyone wants to seek comfort.
00:10:18.000And so at one point he was just hugging on my neck trying to take me down in desperation and we ended up being like shoulder to shoulder and he's like pulling me from the neck this way trying to pull me down.
00:10:31.000And my leg got stuck in the mat and it just completely caved.
00:10:39.000And when I went to step down on the mat, my whole knee just like came out from underneath me.
00:10:44.000It was like one of those disgusting things, like just flopping all over the place.
00:10:48.000So, you know, I made a mistake because on the way, you know, I had just won the Ultimate Fighter and I was getting ready to go to my next fight.
00:10:57.000And I was getting ready to fight Jessica Andrade, actually.
00:12:26.000So was it because you think you've trained the way you did because you were in a bad headspace?
00:12:31.000Yeah, I was, I had just recently saw something with my eyes that I perceived, you know, girls are weird, you know, they overthink everything.
00:12:39.000So I saw something and I was like, oh no.
00:12:43.000And then I went to the gym and- Angry.
00:12:44.000Angry, angry, like just seething, seething angry.
00:12:48.000It's so hard to just take that anger and put it aside and just think rationally when you're training.
00:12:55.000You see guys like spar angry and then drop their hands and swing wild and it's like, God, the worst things happen when you do that.
00:13:04.000Well, and I think that for some reason my coach has it in my mind or even other people's mind, not so much my mind, but he'll tell other people that she fights better when she's mad.
00:13:13.000She actually fights better when she has chaos in her life.
00:13:16.000It's almost like the Tonya Harding type of situation where it's like I'm not at my best unless I'm getting mentally beaten down.
00:14:08.000He knocked him out when he was walking with an STD. He had an STD and he destroyed the former heavyweight champion in one of the most spectacular knockouts the heavyweight division's ever seen.
00:14:18.000And the guy had an STD. By the way, I love Mike Tyson.
00:15:06.000Yeah, and as a professional, especially now as a professional and a world champion, you really have to make sure everything is aligned properly.
00:15:16.000Your mind, your rest, your recovery, the whole deal.
00:21:30.000I wish it made sense because I have a friend in LA that just took the monoclonal antibodies a few days ago and she got better and she was really scared.
00:21:36.000And she's vaxxed and boosted and she got real sick and she took the monoclonal antibodies and she was back like that instantaneously.
00:21:44.000And they try to not give them to her in the hospital because she's too healthy.
00:22:17.000Well, remember Peter McCullough said that there's like a specific plant that's growing somewhere and then one day like they were all burned, gone.
00:22:46.000They do slash and burn agriculture in places, and they don't take any consideration as to what...
00:22:51.000That's an issue with the stripping of the Amazon, is that there's a lot of plants in the Amazon that could conceivably lead to amazing pharmaceutical medications.
00:23:01.000A lot of the pharmaceutical drugs that we take that are really helpful, they find them in the Amazon.
00:23:07.000So when they do stuff like that, it might not be a conspiracy to kill people.
00:23:12.000It might just be slash-and-burn agriculture that they're doing for livestock.
00:23:17.000What they do in Brazil in particular, and in some places, is they'll slash and cut down giant chunks of the rainforest, and then they use it just for grazing land, for cattle.
00:23:29.000But in doing so, you're destroying this ecosystem.
00:23:41.000Well, reality is there's a lot of people scared, and there's a lot of confusion, and there's also a lot of people that don't want people discussing things.
00:23:49.000They only want one narrative, and that's where it becomes a problem for me.
00:23:54.000It's because science is supposed to be debated between experts, and oftentimes people who are highly credentialed, who are experts in their field, disagree vehemently about the exact same subject with the exact same facts at hand.
00:24:09.000And so the way they sort that out is through peer review, through discussions, like when they have litigations, right, when they have lawsuits, you'll often have an expert witness that is for the defense and an expert witness for the prosecution, and both of them are experts,
00:24:25.000like legitimate, educated experts, and they differ completely.
00:24:29.000Now, whether or not they're being honest or whether or not they're being paid to give an expert opinion that follows a certain narrative because this is what their client wants, I don't know.
00:24:38.000But I do know that science is supposed to be sorted out through discussion of evidence.
00:24:44.000And when you suppress the discussion of evidence and you suppress people utilizing things that are 100% healthy, safe to use, off-label medications, you've got a real problem in your hand.
00:24:57.000And that's what a lot of doctors think now.
00:25:00.000That's what a lot of people think now.
00:25:01.000And that's why this whole thing is so confusing.
00:25:15.000The thing that's been driving me crazy about all this is how little emphasis they've put on getting people to change their lifestyle, make better lifestyle choices.
00:25:24.000You know, that's fucking crazy when you find out how many people that wind up in the hospital that are overweight.
00:30:08.000Spokane is, that's like towards the middle of So there's a mountain range that separates the state of Washington, Seattle's on the coast and the ocean, and then Spokane's on the exact opposite side.
00:30:36.000One of my escape from LA trips was Seattle before the shit hit the fan with COVID. I was thinking of taking my family and moving to Seattle.
00:31:22.000And she had to get like a light, like a specific light and like look into it every day because she's not getting the sun, you know, like she's like depressed and like has all this sadness is like because there's no sun.
00:37:48.000And across the river from this guy's house, they're looking out the window, and they're watching this tornado just drop down and fucks the house up and then takes off.
00:38:04.000It came in the middle of the night, and it was lightning.
00:38:08.000So these people were driving, and then lightning would flash, and through the lightning, because the sky was illuminated, you'd see this funnel cloud that's as wide as 30 blocks.
00:38:25.000And you can't even predict which way it's going to go, left or right.
00:38:28.000Imagine being in your car, and you don't know what's going on, and you hear there's a tornado warning, and then the lightning and thunder flash, and you see it in the distance.
00:39:49.000Well, there was, I mean, in Chicago, there's sometimes tornadoes.
00:39:52.000I think, like, one of the places got hit there, Naperville got hit, and I saw some houses flattened over there, and I was like, that's kind of scary because I live, you know, pretty close to the area.
00:41:18.000It's like there's remedies that people put in place.
00:41:22.000There's laws that people put in place that they think they're helping people and they're just making problems worse.
00:41:26.000Criminals don't pay attention to laws.
00:41:28.000So you make laws that criminals don't pay attention to, that keep ordinary citizens from protecting themselves, you're always going to have problems.
00:45:43.000Yeah, I just know that I heard, anyhow, from one of my friends who is signed with the PFL, that she was going to stay with the PFL. And then I think yesterday they said that they signed a new deal and that I believe that she's staying with the PFL. She should, if she makes good money.
00:45:57.000Yeah, she's won, what, the million dollar tournament twice.
00:49:00.000Fedor came to our gym and did a private in the back area of the gym and he was basically telling me to come to the gym because he knew Fedor was going to be there but he didn't tell me that he was going to be there.
00:49:10.000So of course I'm waiting to stalk Fedor and he was at the gym the whole time.
00:49:14.000So the only picture I got of him was me trying to get a quick selfie after he won and he's just like...
00:50:10.000Or even, I don't even want to say his name because I am still angry about him not giving me any credit and actually talking crap about me, but Khabib, he retired on his own terms.
00:50:20.000Khabib talked crap about, what did he say?
00:50:20.000Yeah, he was just like telling, like, I saw in a presser, they asked him a question and he was just completely downgrading the whole win and everything like that.
00:55:50.000But, you know, oftentimes when people haven't cut weight and then they have to, you know, you see like there's a difference in like where your body bounces back from that.
00:56:28.000Because Kayla is talking about how she's training partners with Amanda and how she learns so much from Amanda and how amazing Amanda is as a training partner and how she has just learned so much from the champ.
00:56:42.000And so I'm so confused because you want Amanda to win so that you can fight your friend?
00:56:49.000Well, she's getting paid more than I am making the millions over there at the PFL. I think the idea was that, and I'm just guessing, that Amanda, you know, this worldwide recognition is the greatest woman fighter of all time.
00:57:03.000And then you get, if she beat you, then you get this giant super fight with this Olympic judo medalist who seems like, you know, when you look at Kayla, she seems like a threat.
00:57:15.000Like you go, okay, well Amanda's this like super strong, like really good grappler, knockout puncher.
00:59:18.000Well, somebody suggested, well, what if she doesn't decide to take the fight with you and decides to take an easier fight at 45 and retires off into the sunset?
01:00:03.000You know, Floyd would go to a nightclub and then leave the nightclub and have his drivers drive the car home and he would run behind the car.
01:02:48.000And I was overweight and so my sister invited me to a woman's cardio kickboxing class and I met Rick Little and kind of threw my first punch and it's been over since.
01:04:33.000Well, it was a weird situation where there wasn't a lot of standouts in that 135-pound division where it, like, marketing-wise, where it looked like someone that everybody wanted to see fight Amanda.
01:05:21.000The other half are like, you get a really good surgeon, which I had, Dr. Kavitney in L.A., who did Kobe Bryant, John Jones, George St. Pierre.
01:05:29.000He's done the who's who, all the L.A. Lakers.
01:05:32.000He was like, you absolutely will fight again.
01:06:46.000And you were telling me before we got here that your strength and conditioning program, like you went several camps where you didn't have any strength and conditioning program.
01:06:55.000Yeah, because my original trainer, Chris Grayson, he moved from Chicago and he went to South Carolina and I didn't have anybody.
01:07:03.000So I was just doing my road work on my own, push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups and just kind of like lifting, just touching the weights on my own in my vanity room.
01:07:32.000And I'm learning more, you know, but I'm just more of like the you point and I go, you know, and so I shoot whatever my trainer tells me to do.
01:07:40.000But when I didn't have a trainer, I was just like, you've been doing this long enough.
01:07:44.000You know that at the end of the day, it's not about how much you can lift or how much you can bench press.
01:07:57.000Did you put your camps together or did you have somebody that structured them for you?
01:08:00.000So Rick Little is my head coach and he kind of is in communication with all my other coaches in Chicago.
01:08:06.000He'll, you know, call them, tell them what he wants me to work on and then, you know, trusting in their expertise because they're all experts in their own field.
01:08:12.000He'll call Coach Mike and then Coach Mike will obviously run me through his own practice, but then he'll put attention to the detail that Rick said too.
01:08:19.000And so they are all kind of in communication with what Rick is saying as far as what we're going to do in the camp and how we're going to win the fight and game plan.
01:08:35.000He'll go back to Spokane and then I'll come back out again and then we'll always leave together to the fight.
01:08:39.000So he's always making that trip to come over and be with me and make sure that, you know, as long as he stays for a week or two weeks and sees that I got it, then he'll go back and then he'll come, you know, a couple weeks later again.
01:08:51.000Because for a lot of fighters, the development process is so intense that the relationship between the coach and the athlete, it's almost inseparable.
01:09:00.000And then for other people, they go jump from camp to camp and they never have that sort of deep intimacy with the person that trains them.
01:09:37.000And they don't even have to be that good.
01:09:39.000They don't have to be some world-renowned coach.
01:09:41.000As long as they care and they're checking and they're putting you through what you need, that's all you need.
01:09:46.000But that's why these people are always jumping gyms because they can't find a coach that is invested in them.
01:09:51.000And Rick has always been invested in me.
01:09:53.000He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself.
01:09:55.000And he told me that I was going to be a champion.
01:09:57.000He told me that Dana White was going to open the doors to the women in the UFC. He told me stick with this, you know, and he's the only one that has been like that constant voice of reason and guiding me.
01:10:07.000And I mean, he taught me how to fight.
01:11:20.000So I definitely think that she could have stuck with it.
01:11:21.000But it was important to have her because her beating me up and knowing me my whole life...
01:11:28.000When my sister was in my corner in the early amateur days and stuff, I was like, I'll take on anybody because my sister believes in me, you know, and even Rick, you know, so the two of them together, they'd be like, let's go, you can do it.
01:11:38.000I'm like, I know I can because I know that she knows who I am through and through that we share the same blood and she's not lying.
01:11:45.000If she's telling me I can do it, then I know I can do it.
01:13:16.000Yeah, we found that in jujitsu with breakdancing, you know, with Richie Martinez and Gio Martinez at 10th Planet.
01:13:21.000They came over and they were these breakdancers and they were so fucking strong and so mobile and agile that Eddie Bravo started incorporating breakdancing training.
01:13:32.000He was like, there's something to that.
01:13:34.000Like, it's obviously, look how these guys can manipulate their body.
01:16:39.000It's just that culture, the culture of breakdancing is so strong, and the athletes that do it, I don't think most people know how crazy what they're doing is.
01:16:51.000Most people on the outside, they don't know how wild this sport or this art form has gotten.
01:16:58.000It takes a lot of athleticism, that's for sure.
01:18:51.000I mean, do you remember when we used to like blow out candles on birthday cakes like we were wild back then like that Yeah, that's a super spreader event now.
01:18:58.000Yeah, exactly So when you do like walk me through like a typical camp, like if you say you're gonna defend your title against Amanda What how much time do you want to give yourself and like how do you prepare?
01:19:12.000I've already started You've already started?
01:19:20.000Not three times a day anymore, but at least showing up at least a few times a week and getting that foundation with the strength and conditioning and the conditioning and everything like that.
01:19:31.000I'm not as aggressive with training six days a week.
01:19:38.000And I will once I get into the official camp.
01:19:41.000But it's important now to keep the foundation and to keep the base.
01:19:45.000And that means lifting still and running still.
01:19:49.000Making sure that, you know, I'm not turning back into the Tin Man, you know, because nothing is harder than getting out of shape and then trying to get back in shape again.
01:20:59.000But I was in a younger stage where I would just be like partying and living it up and I didn't have any, let's say, little lives depending on me.
01:21:12.000And especially with her being in school, it's forced me to get on more of a routine.
01:21:16.000Do you think also though that the progress you've made from not doing that has made you more disciplined because you've recognized the value in that discipline?
01:21:26.000Well, not only that, but just staying consistent and active.
01:21:31.000Staying active, I think, is a very important thing, especially as a fighter.
01:21:35.000You take a loss, I won't fight again for a year because I'm so depressed and F fighting, you know?
01:21:40.000But when I took a loss to Jermaine, I was like, I'm going to, you know, disappear off the face of the planet and cry myself to sleep again like I did with Valentina.
01:21:48.000My coach Wayne was like, no, you need to take another fight immediately.
01:21:53.000And I took another fight about a month and a half later against Sarah McMahon.
01:21:56.000And so staying active and disciplined and grinding, it's tiresome and it kind of gets, you know, like, but then once it becomes your norm, it's like, this is what I do.
01:22:06.000And then you think, what else do you got to do today?
01:22:40.000Because I hadn't lost in the UFC at that point.
01:22:42.000And I think it was a big, gigantic lesson in underestimating your opponent.
01:22:49.000I thought, Valentina, 17-time Muay Thai world champion, all I gotta do is take this chick to the ground, it's over.
01:22:55.000I was winning that fight, but I got overzealous.
01:22:58.000I was trying to punch a hole through her face, and I ended up getting caught on top, her on her back, in an arm bar.
01:23:05.000And I'm just like, out of all the ways, I absolutely didn't think that that was going to be the case.
01:23:10.000But there's like, hello, you're fighting at the highest level.
01:23:13.000You have to assume everybody is well-rounded.
01:23:15.000Just because she's a 17-time Muay Thai world champion doesn't mean she doesn't know jiu-jitsu.
01:23:19.000So that one was something that I... Was beating myself up for for so long because I was absolutely certain that I was going to stomp a mud hole in her.
01:24:17.000I'm at 145. I walk around at 145. On a bad day, catch me on a bad day, I walk around at 148, 150. But I walk normally at 145. When I'm in camp, I can't get any higher than 143. Not because for anything other than the fact that I'm training so much that I wake up consistently 142,
01:25:18.000She thinks that she was just, you know...
01:25:21.000Had to go see a sports psychologist to figure out why her brain stopped ticking, you know, at the moment, and that she just gave up and quit on herself.
01:25:28.000Whatever her reasoning is, she's probably a little embarrassed, she's probably a little stung, and she probably wants to stay active and go and get her belt back and show everybody that it was a fluke, you know?
01:25:57.000You have to have somebody that's going to want to dance with you and what not better opponent than somebody that just beat you and just put a blemish in your gigantic record of being the greatest of all time.
01:27:21.000I'll go have a drink with them any old day.
01:27:23.000And then there's the other side where it's like you can't keep advocating for yourself because you're screwing yourself when you got to have a middleman.
01:29:06.000He said, biggest fight in women's history.
01:29:08.000Well, I think the idea was that Amanda was undefeated and she was a goat and this would be the big challenge to her, but also that's, you know...
01:29:19.000Even you were like, the week or the two weeks before the fight would be another UFC and they'd be like, oh yeah, UFC 269 is coming up, Amanda Nunes defending her belt against Juliana Pena.
01:29:29.000Anyways, Valentina is the only one that can pose a threat to Amanda Nunes, you know?
01:29:46.000Listen, reality is if you look at your record and if you look at the people that you lost to and you look at what she's done, it looked like she had a massive advantage over you.
01:29:57.000She was being called the greatest woman of all time.
01:31:06.000There's so much talent, 25. There's so much talent, 35. So when we're doing that, we're just trying to think of what's the biggest hype-up fight.
01:31:13.000Valentin is one of the greatest martial arts practitioners, period.
01:31:17.000And when you look at her being a threat to Amanda, you would say that would be the biggest threat to Amanda.
01:31:22.000So you're trying to set things up and talk about the future.
01:31:25.000Let's just talk about it realistically.
01:32:34.000How are you doing today, DC? He was turning his chair and rolling his eyes?
01:32:38.000Well, I get a Zoom call with Megan and John and DC, and I'm trying to talk to them, but DC, he just didn't look like he was having a good time of paying attention.
01:32:47.000So I asked him in the fighter interview, I said, they want to know, how are you feeling going into this fight?
01:32:52.000I said, well, Well, how did you feel, you know, when you were in my position and fighting for, you know, a championship?
01:32:57.000And he was like, well, sometimes it went my way and sometimes it didn't.
01:33:00.000Sometimes I lost and sometimes it didn't.
01:33:01.000It was very like, you're fucked, you know?
01:36:43.000Yeah, all these people are like claiming that they were holding my kid the whole time, and then when it cuts back, it's like some stranger holding her.
01:36:59.000I will say on the flip side, I knew I was going to win and I expected it of myself and I absolutely expected, you know, whether I was going to walk away with one leg or one arm, I was going to walk away with the belt that night no matter what.
01:37:26.000But I don't want to keep focusing on this.
01:37:28.000I want to talk about the future and what's next and how I'm going to move on to the next thing, which is retaining the belt and defending and getting on to the next thing.
01:37:37.000Because I had already known in my head that I will be a champion one day and that it's going to happen.
01:39:28.000I think that primes today are different because of nutrition and because of strength and conditioning methods and because of recovery methods.
01:39:35.000I think people are able to maintain their prime longer.
01:39:39.000However, when it comes to strength and conditioning and all these different things, like one thing that you have to take into account with fighting is damage.
01:39:47.000And so many fighters, by the time they get to a certain age, their necks fucked, their backs fucked, their knees are fucked.
01:40:27.000Because I've had two knee surgeries, right?
01:40:29.000And don't people get knee replacements or hip replacements and stuff like that?
01:40:32.000I'm going to have to have pooled money from somewhere to have this type of surgery.
01:40:35.000I mean, my surgeon, he told me, when I asked him that question, he says, by the time you're going to have to be worrying about that, we'll be living on the moon.
01:42:21.000I've had Regenikine, which is a very similar process to PRP, where they take your platelets, they take your blood out, and they spin it in a centrifuge, just like PRP, but they add a bunch of stuff to it, and it's really effective.
01:45:31.000What you could do is have it set up where you have some sort of a room that's got a table and a microphone, a camera on you, and you just talk about how you feel about upcoming match-ups.
01:47:21.000Yeah, after fighting, I could see that all day long, but for the most part, people ask me about fights and stuff, and I'm like, this is going to sound horrible, super selfish.
01:47:29.000I don't care about anybody but myself, and I don't care.
01:49:33.000Because I think that, you know, we need a woman's perspective, especially a veteran woman's fighting perspective, on, you know, big fights.
01:49:42.000You know, there's not much difference between men and women when it comes to fighting, but there's enough that I would want to hear from a championship woman's perspective.
01:49:51.000And when it comes to a big fight, like say, you know, if Valentina's fighting someone, you fought Valentina, and doing commentary, like, that happens all the time in boxing.
01:50:05.000And that also reminds me of I thought for a long time, and that's refreshing to hear you say that, actually, because I thought for a long time they just don't want to hear what a chick has to say about fighting, maybe.
01:50:30.000I'm like, they must not, like, respect what a woman's opinion would be because it's been how long that they have never allowed a woman to, like, sit next to you guys and do what you guys do, like, together.
01:52:28.000So if I was going to score really accurately, I would have a piece of paper and I would shut my fucking mouth.
01:52:36.000When Eddie Bravo used to score fights, he would do in-between round scoring like Harold Letterman does in boxing.
01:52:43.000And he would have two pieces of paper with two sides to it, and he would write down takedowns, this, that, submission attempts, kicks, punches, he'd mark all those things down, and then afterwards he would add in what did more damage, think about it in his set,
01:53:31.000And I'll segue that by saying that I think that obviously I'm biased towards Moreno winning the fight because he's Mexican and he's Hispanic like I am.
01:53:38.000And he's fighting a Brazilian like I did.
01:53:41.000And then he also, in some regard, did the impossible too.
01:56:03.000But like my brain, especially leading up to Amanda, I had to tell them a month ahead of time that I had to quit because I needed to focus on myself.
01:56:09.000It was hard for me to be present calling these fights when I'm like, I'm making a mistake by being here because I should be training right now.
01:57:35.000To the point where it was costing me too much money because I would make more money doing stand-up on a weekend than I would doing the UFC and it was hard because I was flying all over the place so I quit in like 98. Oh you did?
01:59:04.000So we were like, you know what the sport needs?
01:59:07.000The sport needs some crazy billionaire who's a fan to just dump a bunch of money into it and make it so that everybody could see what we see and just put it out there.
02:02:15.000Yeah, but I was so, like, I didn't know how to feel and maybe you can help me out with this because, like, two UFCs before I sat right behind him and it was the first time I'd ever seen him before.
02:02:25.000And Valentina was fighting Lauren Murphy and he was just like...
02:02:29.000Not happy, you know, he's like women's fighting is and I was like you're breaking my heart Chuck cuz he said that he was like the whole fight and I was Not I'm not gonna repeat but I was like you you literally said that to you No, he's talking in front of me,
02:02:45.000but like he's watching the fight and you can just tell he's just you know upset so I I don't know how anybody could watch Valentina perform and perform against Laura Murphy was she put on a fucking show Yeah.
02:02:56.000And then I sat next to him at the UFC this last time and I think that I was trying to be like, you know, give him a chance, you know, because maybe he was just having a bad night that night.
02:03:06.000And I think, you know, the second time meeting him was more pleasant.
02:03:10.000And I was thinking to myself, this is so weird because his generation back when he was starting is just so different from this generation.
02:03:19.000But what's interesting is that you've seen like All the generations, you know what I mean?
02:03:24.000You've seen those Mark Coleman moments, those Dan Severn moments, those Chuck Liddell moments, all the way up to current day, and that's nuts.
02:03:31.000It just also goes to show you how new the sport is, but how much more mainstream it's getting.
02:03:38.000But yeah, when I started, the difference between the skill level then versus now is there's not another sport where you can go back to, I mean, when I started it was 97. There's not another sport where you go back to 97 and then look at the difference in the caliber of the athletes and it's so night and day.
02:04:23.000Yeah, I think round by round is the best way to go because then you hold the judges accountable.
02:04:27.000How do we get rid of these problems that we're having with these judges?
02:04:30.000I think you need to hire fighters for judges.
02:04:32.000And I know some fighters like Ricardo Almeida, he's done some judging and some other, you know, we had Frank Trigg was in the Octagon during this, and so he was as a referee.
02:04:54.000But I think there's some scoring that's just a little fucking...
02:04:58.000And it's a real problem when you go to regional judging.
02:05:01.000If you go to a town that's not used to having a UFC and then they have regional judges or regional referees and they fuck up the fights, that does become a problem.
02:06:45.000If you're on your back and you're causing damage or even those attacking submissions, just because you're on your back doesn't mean that you're losing.
02:06:51.000But sometimes to the naked eye, they're like, oh, this guy sucks.
02:06:53.000He's on his back and he can't do anything.
02:06:55.000It's like, you don't even know what's going on.
02:06:56.000Uriah Hall knocks someone out from his guard.
02:08:17.000Now let me ask you, in all of the time, obviously you were doing news radio and then the fear factor and now you've been doing this, but like have you ever fought ever?
02:09:30.000Yeah, I was a socially awkward weirdo.
02:09:32.000I mean, I was popular in some ways because I was kind of cute.
02:09:35.000And also, people are a little weirded out by the fact that there's this kid that goes to our school that travels around and kicks people in the face.
02:09:57.000Well, my mom got divorced when I was young.
02:10:00.000She separated from my dad and then married my stepdad and we moved to San Francisco because he was going to school there.
02:10:07.000We lived there from age 7 to 11. I was born in New Jersey, lived there until I was 7, then San Francisco 7 to 11, then Florida 11 to 13, and then Boston 13 to 24. So it was like all of this moving and not having friends and then getting picked on a lot.
02:10:40.000One of my very good friends is a guy named Steve Graham and I've been friends with him since I was 15. And he is the guy who talked me to doing stand-up.
02:12:05.000He just texted me the other day and asked me if I would be willing to do like a five or seven minute set for, I don't know, I think they were doing something on Fight Pass where, you know, they got like Shale Sonnen.
02:13:03.000Because if you don't think it's funny, the audience is not going to laugh as much.
02:13:07.000I mean, they might laugh because it's good.
02:13:09.000But when I know that I have a subject that is really going to work well, it's like what I'm interested in.
02:13:17.000Like when I start talking about things that mean a lot to me or that make me laugh or that I think are weird, something that makes me pay attention.
02:14:05.000But you would have to think about things that you think that make you laugh and then realize that It is a long, brutal process to become good at comedy.
02:14:15.000It takes like 10 years to become like a legit headliner.
02:14:19.000And it's a long 10 years and you're going to eat shit and there's going to be hostile crowds and you're going to have days where, like you have off training days, you're going to have off show days.
02:14:45.000But you start talking about masks and people wearing masks, and then people are going to get offended because all these people have died and yada, yada, yada, you know?
02:14:55.000Well, there's topics that you can touch and topics that you can't touch, and I feel like that's one of the topics that you can't touch, but right now I find hilarious.
02:15:55.000And that would be a great thing to do along with a podcast.
02:15:59.000But I'm just putting these things in your head because, you know, there's so many fighters that focus entirely on their career and that's great.
02:16:06.000But until there's no more career and then they're lost and their identity is completely wrapped up in the fact that they're a fighter.
02:16:15.000They retire and then they come back to fighting because what else are you going to do?
02:17:28.000Eddie and I were talking like, that was the best fight of the night.
02:17:30.000And it's like, anybody who thinks that girl fights aren't good, that was the best fucking fight of the night.
02:17:35.000When Amanda knocked out Cyborg, that was one of the wildest fights I've ever seen in my life.
02:17:41.000When you beat Amanda, one of the best fights I've ever seen in my life.
02:17:45.000Because what do you want out of fighting?
02:17:47.000Like I said, you want this moment where it's so exciting That while you're in the middle of it, you're going, I can't believe this is really happening.
02:19:23.000When you think about your life pre-mother and then post-mother, how different are you?
02:19:28.000It's extremely different because I was a weirdo back before I had a kid in the sense that they'd be like, well, how important is this to you?
02:19:35.000And I'd be like, I'm a mama bear and I got to protect my cub and my cub's got to eat.
02:21:05.000And first and foremost, what she does is women spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on IVF treatments or all sorts of different ways in order to conceive and give childbirth or have kids.
02:21:16.000Jennifer, her method is alternative to say, before you do that, just hear me out and let me try to work on you.
02:21:24.000And then if I can't get you pregnant, then go ahead and spend your tens of thousands of dollars getting pregnant.
02:21:28.000She manipulates the body so that your body can be ready to receive and so that you can get pregnant.
02:23:01.000But what I heard was one of my friends in California, she's a chiropractor, she was like, this girl's on a podcast, she's in the Chicagoland area, you should check her out.
02:25:16.000But Jenny helped me realize, again, having great doctors and great people around you, giving me that confidence that I would absolutely be back.
02:25:24.000How long did it take before you could train again after that?
02:25:27.000I mean, at least, like, I want to say, like, 12, maybe 10 to 12 weeks.
02:25:34.000I think it's, like, typical six weeks after a C-section, but I don't think I was comfortable training until I felt, like, absolutely better.
02:26:13.000She's been literally, and since I went to the gym after having her, she's been in a car seat as a tiny little baby up until now four years old, coming to every single training session that I have.
02:26:23.000We're a package deal, and since I moved to Chicago, I don't have my parents.
02:26:27.000I don't have anybody, family or sisters, anybody that can watch my kid.
02:26:37.000And she has seen me train every single day.
02:26:39.000So she'll hang out on the cage and she'll start cheering for me, you know, and I can hear her and she's excited and she knows, you know, she knows what's up.
02:28:20.000But if she were to come to me and be passionate and dedicated and, you know, showing me that she's disciplined and wanting to do it for real and that's what her heart truly desires, then of course I'm not going to say no.
02:29:50.000It's not just your reward that you've got.
02:29:52.000I mean, you could speak to this better than I could, but I think your reward that you get from being who you are now is not just money, but it's also like, holy shit, look what you did.
02:30:18.000If you decided to go do something else, you could do that too.
02:30:20.000You already have the mental fortitude to get through that.
02:30:25.000And it's also the entertainment value.
02:30:28.000There's no higher entertainment value.
02:30:30.000In terms of the amount of joy that you gave the world that night, that moment when you beat Amanda and she tapped and you went crazy and everyone went crazy and Very few human beings ever affect people that way.
02:30:45.000Especially large numbers of people that are watching you.
02:30:48.000It's such a small group of people that get that window in life where they break through with some performance, some thing they did, some effort, some accomplishment that they achieved that literally changes everyone's life who watched it.
02:31:12.000And I am so blessed and fortunate that I get to live this life and give these people this inspiration and this hope and this realization that, hey, Hey, look at me.