The Joe Rogan Experience - May 28, 2019


JRE MMA Show #66 with Michelle Waterson

Topics
grappling training women's MMA fights Muay Thai has no mainstream appeal transgender fighters in sports sandbagging Anderson Silva boxing evolution weight classes in MMA steroids and weight cutting in MMA psychological training in fighting fight preparation confidence practices float tank pregnancy and postpartum depression failure lessons for daughter starweight division
Hosted by
Joe Rogan
Mentioned
Jessica Andrade Rose Minotauro Jackson Muay Thai Michelle Watterson Joey Villasenor John Wayne Parr Donald Cerrone Winklejohn Anderson Silva Marvin Hagler Josh John Brennan Gabby Garcia Mighty Mouse Jon Jones Crow Cop George St. Pierre Roy Jones Jr. and 62 more
Joe Rogan Experience #1303 - Tommy Chong Joe Rogan Experience #1305 - JD & John Witherspoon

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 49 minutes

Words per minute

175.23

Word count

19,185

Sentence count

2,195

Harmful content

Misogyny

93

sentences flagged

Toxicity

168

sentences flagged

Hate speech

40

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, the brother and sister duo of the sit down and talk about growing up in a military family and what it was like growing up with a military man. They also talk about how they met and fell in love with each other and how they ended up getting married and having a baby boy. And of course, they talk about some of the craziest things they have ever seen in the military! We hope you enjoy this episode and that it makes you feel a little bit more grounded in your everyday life! Thank you so much for listening to this episode of and we hope you have a great rest of the week! xoxo, Michelle and Matt xo Music by: , , and . Words and Music by . . Music and Music written by & Thanks to: for the intro and outro music by , "I Don't Know What I'm Doin' This" by ) and from the band, "Sonic the Hedgehog (feat. Andrea Thomas and ) join us on our first ever live show! and of course we have our first guest on the pod! , of course! we are so excited to have our very first guest, our good friend, Michelle! (and her music is amazing too! & we can't wait for you to listen to us to hear her music! ! thank you, Michelle's music is so much more than you can do it! - Thank you for being here, Michelle, we really well and we appreciate you, thank you for coming out with us and we really appreciate you. Thank you very much, Michelle and we're so much love you're being so much, we're looking forward to having you back, we appreciate all of you, we love you, so much we're grateful you're listening to us back and we'll keep you back and back, Thank you, you're amazing, we'll see you back again and back and you're back, bye! love ya back and more and back again, bye, bye Thank ya, bye bye! xo, bye Bye Bye! <3 XOXOXO, MYSELF, MALAYA - Michelle & JUICY, MACKY, JAY & KAREN

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:01.000 Two, one.
00:00:03.000 Hello, Michelle.
00:00:04.000 How's it going?
00:00:06.000 I'm getting ready to crack my neck. 1.00
00:00:07.000 Go ahead, crack your neck. 0.99
00:00:09.000 Put the microphone to it so we can hear it. 0.71
00:00:11.000 Does it pop?
00:00:12.000 I think I just popped.
00:00:13.000 Ooh! 0.96
00:00:14.000 That was a good one.
00:00:15.000 That was a good one.
00:00:16.000 Do you do that all the time?
00:00:18.000 Just when I'm getting ready to...
00:00:20.000 Throw down?
00:00:21.000 Yeah. 0.85
00:00:22.000 Pull this microphone like a fist from your face. 0.61
00:00:24.000 There we go.
00:00:24.000 Is that better?
00:00:25.000 Yeah, perfect.
00:00:26.000 So what's happening?
00:00:26.000 Perfect.
00:00:27.000 No, we're just in town.
00:00:30.000 My brother-in-law just got stationed here in California, so we drove him down, and then we did the whole Disney thing.
00:00:36.000 San Diego?
00:00:37.000 No, I think it's actually an hour south of here, I think.
00:00:44.000 It's not close by, but...
00:00:46.000 Cool.
00:00:47.000 Air Force.
00:00:49.000 Is that Edwards?
00:00:50.000 Yes, I think it is.
00:00:52.000 Okay, I know where that is, yeah.
00:00:53.000 Yeah, so we got stationed there.
00:00:54.000 That was the first time I ever saw a stealth bomber.
00:00:58.000 It was like, right after 9-1-1, we were filming Fear Factor out there, and I saw one fly overhead.
00:01:04.000 It's like a UFO. I was like, wow, that is crazy.
00:01:07.000 Does it look like a UFO? Yeah, it doesn't even look real.
00:01:09.000 You ever seen one in real life?
00:01:09.000 Really?
00:01:10.000 I've never.
00:01:11.000 It looks like a Batmobile, like Batman's plane.
00:01:14.000 It's so crazy.
00:01:15.000 When you see one flying, you're like, wow, the engineering involved in something like that.
00:01:20.000 It's insane.
00:01:21.000 And that was a while back.
00:01:22.000 Yeah.
00:01:22.000 It was a fear factor.
00:01:23.000 Sure.
00:01:24.000 It was 2001, because it was right after 9-11.
00:01:26.000 So it was 2000. That's it right there.
00:01:28.000 That's what we saw.
00:01:29.000 That's one of them.
00:01:29.000 That's one of them?
00:01:30.000 There's a B2, and then this is like an F-116 or something like that.
00:01:33.000 I don't know which one we saw, but it was black and wicked-looking. 1.00
00:01:37.000 Nice. 0.96
00:01:38.000 That's crazy.
00:01:39.000 Looks like your Tesla.
00:01:41.000 Flying around in one of those things?
00:01:43.000 That's what we thought.
00:01:44.000 Well, imagine back then.
00:01:45.000 That's what it looked like back then.
00:01:46.000 So what is there now?
00:01:48.000 You probably can't see them.
00:01:48.000 Right.
00:01:49.000 They probably look like the sky.
00:01:51.000 Probably.
00:01:52.000 Are you from a military background?
00:01:53.000 My dad, yeah.
00:01:55.000 So that's what my parents met.
00:01:56.000 My dad was stationed in Germany.
00:01:58.000 My mom was fleeing Thailand.
00:02:03.000 Her first husband was physically abusive to her, so she was leaving Thailand.
00:02:09.000 And she came to Germany to find her a GI and found my dad.
00:02:13.000 She came to find a GI specifically?
00:02:15.000 Well, you know, I think she was coming to get away, but she wanted a better life for her son at the time.
00:02:15.000 Yeah.
00:02:23.000 And my dad was in the hospital, and so my mom was taking care of him and cooking him food and made him fall in love.
00:02:31.000 There you go.
00:02:33.000 And my dad always jokes.
00:02:34.000 He tells us this story all the time.
00:02:36.000 He's like, yeah, your mom was taking care of me, and then she told me that you were pregnant, and then 12 months later you were born.
00:02:46.000 Oh, that's funny.
00:02:48.000 But no, they fell in love.
00:02:51.000 It was just a really long pregnancy.
00:02:53.000 Just weird.
00:02:54.000 Just kind of weird.
00:02:55.000 Yeah, it's like 12 months.
00:02:55.000 I don't know why.
00:02:57.000 But I was very small.
00:02:57.000 I don't know.
00:03:00.000 Then we moved to Colorado, and I was born.
00:03:05.000 Then we lived in Germany for a little bit when I was younger.
00:03:07.000 And then back to Colorado, and I grew up in Aurora, Colorado.
00:03:10.000 Oh, cool.
00:03:11.000 When did you start training?
00:03:13.000 Probably around 10. Yeah?
00:03:15.000 Yeah, around 10. I have an older brother.
00:03:17.000 He's four years older than me.
00:03:18.000 He's my half-brother.
00:03:19.000 And I really wanted to do gymnastics as a kid.
00:03:23.000 And my parents, we just couldn't afford it.
00:03:25.000 It was really expensive.
00:03:26.000 And so my brother found a little karate spot at the church just across the street.
00:03:32.000 And it was a community, like a community karate thing.
00:03:38.000 And so it was something that all three of us could do.
00:03:40.000 And so, yeah, we jumped into it and I fell in love with it.
00:03:44.000 It just took over my life and changed my life.
00:03:48.000 Did you start competing really quickly?
00:03:50.000 Yeah, I think so.
00:03:52.000 And at first, it's funny because at first, so I would do like the karate tournaments and so there's point sparring and then there's the katas.
00:04:02.000 And I thought the katas were silly. 1.00
00:04:05.000 And I remember going in and doing point sparring. 0.99
00:04:10.000 Getting knocked on my butt. 0.61
00:04:11.000 And I was like, okay, I think I want to do some katas then. 0.99
00:04:14.000 I want to bring some trophies home.
00:04:18.000 So yeah, I competed karate from 10 all the way up until I was 18. So I did a lot of the flashy, extreme martial arts katas with the flips and stuff like that.
00:04:32.000 But I always came back to sparring because I wasn't good at it.
00:04:39.000 I was like, it bugged me.
00:04:41.000 It bugged me that I wasn't good at it.
00:04:44.000 And then I found my niche because it's point sparring.
00:04:46.000 So you get two points to the head for kicks to the head. 0.98
00:04:50.000 So I would just sit back and let them come in and just kick them in the head. 0.99
00:04:54.000 Kick them in the head a couple times and win the fight. 0.99
00:04:57.000 So how did you go from that?
00:04:58.000 Did you go from that to kickboxing or did you go right into MMA? When did you start training MMA? So I did karate and then I got my black belt in karate.
00:05:11.000 What kind?
00:05:12.000 American freestyle.
00:05:14.000 And then so I think around 18 or 19 I was kind of just exploring doing a couple different things.
00:05:20.000 So I did wushu for a couple of years and I competed in wushu.
00:05:23.000 And then I did a little bit of campo and then kind of dabbled a little bit into kickboxing.
00:05:32.000 And, uh, so, it all kind of just happened pretty strangely.
00:05:37.000 I was in college, I was working at Hooters, and I was doing all these, like, little side jobs, um, like, doing photo shoots for this and that, and, um, I was a ring girl for an MMA show.
00:05:50.000 I had never seen MMA. And I remember just walking around the cage and thinking, man, I want to be like on the inside.
00:05:59.000 That looks cool.
00:06:00.000 I think I could do it because it was mixed martial arts, you know.
00:06:03.000 And I remember talking to a promoter and he kind of laughed me off and was just like, whatever, you know, you're a ring girl.
00:06:11.000 And it was a smaller local show.
00:06:13.000 Donald Cerrone was actually fighting on that show and he overheard me.
00:06:17.000 Yeah.
00:06:18.000 And so he came to my work at Hooters and I wasn't there and he was just like, left me a note. 0.99
00:06:23.000 If you're serious about fighting, get your ass in the gym. 0.99
00:06:25.000 Wow. 0.99
00:06:26.000 And where was this?
00:06:27.000 Is this in Colorado?
00:06:28.000 In Colorado.
00:06:29.000 So I went to go training with Donald.
00:06:33.000 We gym-hopped from place to place.
00:06:35.000 I trained with Dwayne.
00:06:39.000 I trained with Trevor.
00:06:40.000 I trained with all the guys.
00:06:42.000 Wow.
00:06:45.000 And so I took a couple smokers.
00:06:46.000 We'd drive around the region and took a couple smokers.
00:06:50.000 And then it was like at that point when I was still in college and I just was not happy in college.
00:06:57.000 I was kind of wandering around aimlessly.
00:07:00.000 I was really successful in high school, and it just didn't transfer over to college.
00:07:09.000 I got good grades.
00:07:10.000 I was 3.8.
00:07:11.000 I was going to DU, but I wasn't happy.
00:07:16.000 There was something missing, and it was the martial arts.
00:07:19.000 It was a big part of my life.
00:07:21.000 You needed a real challenge.
00:07:23.000 You needed something physical, too, probably, right?
00:07:25.000 I would imagine that someone growing up Doing martial arts as long as you did, the thrill of using your body and moving around, it's so important.
00:07:35.000 Once you do that and you compete and it becomes a part of you, the idea of sitting in a classroom all day and then eventually sitting in a job all day was probably not that compelling.
00:07:46.000 Yeah, I think so.
00:07:47.000 I think that I just, yeah, I was losing myself.
00:07:52.000 I was going to school, so I was double majoring in theater and sports science.
00:07:52.000 What were you going to school for?
00:07:57.000 So I was majoring in theater because I got a scholarship for it, and I was doing sports science.
00:08:01.000 I wanted to be like a physical therapist for like a sports team or something like that, or even a martial arts team.
00:08:09.000 But yeah, so I decided to take a little bit, like a break from that.
00:08:13.000 And my mom, my grandma was sick in Thailand.
00:08:17.000 So then I was like, I told my mom I just got with her for the summer and I went to visit my grandma in Thailand.
00:08:23.000 And while I was out there, I went to Sit Yatong Muay Thai camp and I absolutely fell in love with it.
00:08:31.000 They made fun of me because of my karate kicks.
00:08:35.000 It's interesting how different karate kicks are than Thai kicks.
00:08:35.000 Yeah.
00:08:39.000 Yeah.
00:08:39.000 And they were looking at me like I was crazy.
00:08:41.000 But I was like, but no, I'm a black belt.
00:08:43.000 I know what I'm doing.
00:08:44.000 They're just laughing at me.
00:08:46.000 We're training on concrete outside.
00:08:48.000 These little five-year-old kids are doing 10-minute rounds.
00:08:52.000 And my feet are blistering up from kicking over and over and over on the concrete.
00:08:57.000 But I loved it.
00:08:58.000 I fell in love with it. 0.99
00:08:59.000 It kicked my butt and I fell in love with it. 0.98
00:09:01.000 And I came back and I dropped out of college and I decided to pursue fighting. 0.98
00:09:06.000 Wow.
00:09:07.000 So where did you learn grappling?
00:09:10.000 So my first MMA fight was kind of just...
00:09:14.000 It was supposed to be an amateur fight.
00:09:17.000 And like I said, I was training with Donald.
00:09:21.000 And he was training at a school in Vail.
00:09:24.000 And so I would...
00:09:26.000 I would go to...
00:09:29.000 I would...
00:09:31.000 I would work on the weekends and then drive up to Vail and train my grappling and all of it, like all of the MMA. So you basically trained MMA together?
00:09:44.000 Like you didn't take specific grappling classes, but I would imagine that that was the thing that you needed to concentrate on the most, right?
00:09:51.000 Yeah, and I figured, okay, my pro did, or it was supposed to be amateur, but the girl that I was supposed to fight fell through. 1.00
00:10:01.000 And the only girl that they had available was already pro.
00:10:04.000 She was like 2-0 pro.
00:10:05.000 And of course, you know how Donald is. 1.00
00:10:08.000 He's like, whatever, fuck it. 1.00
00:10:09.000 Just do it. 1.00
00:10:10.000 That's a good Donald accent.
00:10:12.000 So I was like, alright, I mean...
00:10:15.000 We've been training, so I literally had four weeks.
00:10:20.000 Throughout my karate career, we would have grappling nights when we would do grappling, but it wasn't anything substantial.
00:10:27.000 So yeah, four weeks of grappling training, and I figured, okay, I'll just use my stand-up to win the fight.
00:10:37.000 And she was swinging from... 0.94
00:10:39.000 From way back here and trying to take my head off.
00:10:42.000 So I ended up taking her down. 0.92
00:10:44.000 I ended up taking her down like six or seven times.
00:10:46.000 Wow.
00:10:47.000 And winning the fight by taking her down and ground and pounding.
00:10:51.000 That's crazy.
00:10:52.000 Yeah, it was crazy.
00:10:53.000 Did you say while you were doing it, like, wow, this is so weird that I'm doing this.
00:10:58.000 It was, I wasn't thinking at all.
00:11:01.000 I was just in the moment, having the time of my life.
00:11:04.000 Were you thinking that this was what you were going to wind up doing, like, professionally?
00:11:09.000 Or were you just thinking, I can't believe I'm doing this?
00:11:11.000 Yeah, that's exactly what I was like.
00:11:13.000 This is so much fun!
00:11:15.000 It was at the Broomfield Event Center.
00:11:16.000 I don't know if that's still called the Broomfield Event Center in Colorado, but...
00:11:20.000 Yeah, I think a bank owns it now or something.
00:11:22.000 They always change names.
00:11:24.000 It was so much fun.
00:11:25.000 But never in my life I thought I would be...
00:11:27.000 A top UFC contender.
00:11:29.000 Never.
00:11:29.000 And on your way, your goal is to be the first mommy to ever win a title.
00:11:35.000 That's possible.
00:11:35.000 Yeah.
00:11:36.000 100%.
00:11:37.000 You're in the hunt right now.
00:11:39.000 What are you ranked?
00:11:40.000 I'm ranked 7th.
00:11:42.000 7th, but I don't think the rankings are anything...
00:12:07.000 I just think the rankings are crazy.
00:12:09.000 Yeah.
00:12:10.000 Well, it's a bunch of people get to submit their positions, right?
00:12:14.000 Like a bunch of journalists and accepted experts on MMA get to...
00:12:19.000 I have no idea.
00:12:20.000 I guess when I look at the rankings, sometimes I feel like it shifts depending on who they're trying to push.
00:12:27.000 Sometimes I feel like just storyline kind of can dictate the rankings.
00:12:32.000 Yeah.
00:12:33.000 You know, obviously I'm a giant fan of the UFC. I love them to death.
00:12:37.000 I'm so happy.
00:12:39.000 I would do nothing for any other organization.
00:12:44.000 I never want to work for another organization.
00:12:45.000 But I don't like the way they do things.
00:12:47.000 There's a lot of things that I don't like.
00:12:48.000 They just cut Elias Theodoro.
00:12:51.000 Really?
00:12:51.000 Yeah.
00:12:52.000 One loss.
00:12:53.000 That's scary.
00:12:53.000 Derek Bronson.
00:12:54.000 I'm like, what?
00:12:54.000 Cut.
00:12:55.000 They cut Derek Bronson?
00:12:56.000 No, no.
00:12:56.000 He lost to Derek Bronson.
00:12:57.000 Okay, I was like, what?
00:12:58.000 He just won.
00:12:59.000 I'm like, explain that.
00:13:01.000 How do you explain that one?
00:13:02.000 That one doesn't make any sense.
00:13:03.000 There's like some matchups don't make any sense.
00:13:06.000 Interim title shots, those are preposterous.
00:13:09.000 It's crazy.
00:13:09.000 Yeah.
00:13:10.000 I mean, I understand it's this machine and it has to work and they're trying, but it's just, especially for a fighter whose life depends on the fights and your livelihood depends on that and for you just to be out, it's stressful enough to only fight a couple times a year because you have to divvy up that purse money throughout those times.
00:13:32.000 Yeah.
00:13:32.000 Yeah.
00:13:33.000 Well, I think people like you are very important for women's MMA because you seem so normal.
00:13:41.000 You know what I mean? 0.99
00:13:42.000 Like, there's some women, you talk to them, you're like, well, this girl's fucking crazy. 1.00
00:13:45.000 No wonder why she's a fighter. 1.00
00:13:47.000 You know what I mean?
00:13:48.000 Like, there's some girls that are real aggressive or just bad. 1.00
00:13:51.000 Like, you talk to Amanda Nunes, you're like, I get it.
00:13:54.000 Yeah?
00:13:54.000 Yeah, she should be a fighter.
00:13:55.000 Really?
00:13:56.000 Yeah!
00:13:56.000 She's cool.
00:13:57.000 She's so cool.
00:13:58.000 Yeah.
00:13:58.000 She's so cool.
00:13:59.000 But... 1.00
00:14:00.000 That's a badass bitch. 1.00
00:14:01.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:14:02.000 You know what I mean? 1.00
00:14:02.000 She'll fuck people up. 1.00
00:14:03.000 You could tell. 1.00
00:14:04.000 For sure.
00:14:04.000 Just looking at her, you know, like the way she's built, she's wide.
00:14:08.000 You could tell she's got power. 1.00
00:14:09.000 And she looks like a girl you would not want to fuck with. 1.00
00:14:13.000 Josh called it. 1.00
00:14:14.000 Josh called it.
00:14:14.000 He said that she'd knock out Cyborg.
00:14:17.000 That was crazy.
00:14:18.000 That was crazy.
00:14:19.000 That was...
00:14:20.000 I didn't think that she couldn't knock her out.
00:14:23.000 I think she could knock out anyone. 1.00
00:14:25.000 I mean, I think Amanda Nunes could knock out a lot of guys. 1.00
00:14:28.000 Yeah.
00:14:29.000 She hits so hard. 0.99
00:14:31.000 But I thought that there would be a big weight disadvantage.
00:14:36.000 Cyborg has a tremendous experience advantage.
00:14:38.000 And she's never shown herself to be someone that gets hurt.
00:14:40.000 Even when she fought Jorena Barge.
00:14:42.000 Did you ever see that fight?
00:14:43.000 In Lion Fight?
00:14:44.000 I remember seeing highlights of it because she's just stuck on the ropes. 1.00
00:14:48.000 And Jorina is an elite kickboxer.
00:14:52.000 And Cyborg got dropped and kept coming.
00:14:54.000 I mean, she was pursuing her in the final rounds. 1.00
00:14:57.000 I mean, she was chasing after.
00:14:59.000 She lost the decision, but she gained a lot of fans because she didn't have any pro Muay Thai fights. 0.83
00:15:03.000 And she fought a woman who, like, she couldn't get a fight for almost three years because girls were ducking her because they didn't want to fight her. 1.00
00:15:10.000 Muay Thai is brutal.
00:15:12.000 My husband and I talk about this all the time because in MMA you have options.
00:15:16.000 If you're having trouble in the stand-up, you can take them down.
00:15:19.000 You can work your grappling this or that.
00:15:21.000 In boxing, you don't really have much options.
00:15:23.000 Either you get knocked out or you give up in the corner.
00:15:27.000 I feel it's the same way in Muay Thai except for now you're introducing knees and shins and elbows and those cut and you have no way out.
00:15:38.000 That's brutal.
00:15:40.000 Yeah, it's a rough sport and an incredibly exciting sport to watch.
00:15:44.000 And one that I've never understood.
00:15:46.000 I mean, boxing is so gigantic in this country.
00:15:49.000 Muay Thai has almost no presence.
00:15:51.000 It baffles me to no end.
00:15:54.000 They have the product.
00:15:56.000 They have great American fighters like Joe Schilling, Kevin Ross, and there's a ton of them.
00:16:01.000 There's guys like John Wayne Parr from Australia.
00:16:04.000 All these guys that are exciting to watch and fun.
00:16:07.000 There's so many elite kids that are coming up, but there's no mainstream appeal.
00:16:13.000 I don't understand that.
00:16:14.000 I don't know why either.
00:16:16.000 That is crazy to think.
00:16:17.000 They need a thing like the UFC, where something comes along and they dump a ton of money into it.
00:16:23.000 But the thing is, people only have so much time to watch things.
00:16:28.000 So it's like, oh, Deontay Wilder's fighting.
00:16:31.000 I'll watch that.
00:16:32.000 Oh, Tyron Woodley's fighting.
00:16:35.000 I'll watch him.
00:16:36.000 Oh, Jon Jones is fighting.
00:16:37.000 I'll watch that.
00:16:38.000 What's this Muay Thai?
00:16:39.000 Ah, this fight's not.
00:16:41.000 I'm going to watch Bellator instead.
00:16:42.000 I'm going to watch that instead.
00:16:44.000 It's almost too saturated.
00:16:45.000 Yeah, that's true.
00:16:46.000 But it's a shame.
00:16:48.000 It'd be cool if they had a card with all different types of fighting on there.
00:16:53.000 Well, that's what one does.
00:16:54.000 All in the same night?
00:16:56.000 Yes.
00:16:56.000 One FC does that.
00:16:57.000 They'll have kickboxing, Muay Thai, and MMA in one night.
00:17:01.000 Is it confusing?
00:17:02.000 No, they let everybody know.
00:17:02.000 No.
00:17:04.000 You know, this is what they're doing.
00:17:05.000 I think one is doing fantastic.
00:17:07.000 They're putting on amazing fights.
00:17:10.000 I mean, and we've seen that these are legitimately world-class fighters.
00:17:14.000 They're beating guys like, you know, Timothy Natsukin just beat Eddie Alvarez.
00:17:20.000 Yeah, that was crazy.
00:17:21.000 Yeah, and they're also, they cut out all the weight cutting. 0.99
00:17:24.000 There's no weight cutting over there.
00:17:25.000 So like when Sage Northcutt fought Cosmo Alexandre, he fought him at 185 pounds.
00:17:30.000 Because that's really what he walks around with.
00:17:32.000 So there's no weight cutting over there.
00:17:34.000 That was a brutal hit that he got caught with.
00:17:37.000 Crazy.
00:17:37.000 I'm glad that he's okay.
00:17:38.000 Yeah, he's okay.
00:17:39.000 But yeah, his face had eight fractures.
00:17:43.000 Do you think it's better for him to cut down?
00:17:46.000 It's a good question.
00:17:47.000 It's a very good question.
00:17:48.000 Because, I mean, if he's getting knocked out by that, I'm wondering if maybe he should be walking around lighter or if, I don't know, because he's pretty lean already.
00:17:57.000 He's lean, but that fight played out realistically.
00:18:03.000 Not that it's better for him or worse for him, but Sage is a young guy.
00:18:06.000 He's 21 or 22 years old.
00:18:09.000 He's got a limited amount of world-class Muay Thai experience.
00:18:13.000 He fought Cosmo, who was a multiple-time world champion.
00:18:17.000 And it's just a bad fight.
00:18:19.000 Why would they set that up if they're trying to build them?
00:18:22.000 I've said that too, and people are like, oh, it's easy to say after the fact.
00:18:25.000 You're right.
00:18:26.000 But if I was in Sage's corner, I'd go, hey, bro, there's a lot of fights we should take.
00:18:31.000 And that was a Muay Thai fight?
00:18:32.000 No, it was an MMA fight.
00:18:33.000 It was an MMA fight.
00:18:34.000 But Sage is not a wrestler.
00:18:36.000 I mean, he has taken guys down before, but I would absolutely say that's the game plan.
00:18:41.000 The game plan is tie this guy up and drag him to the ground.
00:18:44.000 Don't be standing with this dude.
00:18:46.000 I just feel like if you have a background in something, in stressful situations, you always revert back to what you know.
00:18:54.000 Sure.
00:18:54.000 And so even if he did work his wrestling, he's going to revert back to his really hoppy movie stance.
00:19:01.000 And that's what it looked like what happened.
00:19:04.000 He was kind of pulling out, hopping back, and got caught.
00:19:06.000 Yeah.
00:19:07.000 Well, he was trying that sideways karate-style stance.
00:19:10.000 Cosmo's just super elite.
00:19:12.000 And if you saw the fight, he fainted a couple times with the left.
00:19:16.000 He set him up with the switch a couple times.
00:19:18.000 And then as Sage circled off, he went to his right and cracked him.
00:19:23.000 That guy's just a super elite fighter.
00:19:27.000 I mean, when it comes to striking, I feel like that is where being elite is the most dangerous for an opponent.
00:19:37.000 I feel like if you fight an elite jiu-jitsu guy and he catches you and he submits you, you live another day.
00:19:44.000 You know, like Neil Magny and Damian Maia.
00:19:45.000 We found out.
00:19:47.000 Damian gets him to the ground and just strangles him, right?
00:19:50.000 But he'll be all right.
00:19:50.000 Yeah.
00:19:52.000 Mm-hmm.
00:19:52.000 If you get KO'd by an elite striker, who knows what kind of damage happens to you.
00:19:59.000 When his face got broken, he had eight fractures in his face, his cheek, his orbital.
00:20:05.000 They had to piece him back together again.
00:20:07.000 Did his orbital detach, do you know?
00:20:09.000 I don't know.
00:20:10.000 I don't know the extent of the injuries.
00:20:11.000 He posted up some images, though.
00:20:13.000 Did you see the images of the x-rays?
00:20:15.000 It's like, whoa.
00:20:17.000 This is horrible.
00:20:18.000 Yeah, I mean, so that's how I feel against jujitsu people.
00:20:25.000 When they submit me, I'm like, okay, let's do it again.
00:20:28.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:20:30.000 Well, what about Andrade and Rose?
00:20:32.000 I was scared.
00:20:33.000 That was crazy, yeah.
00:20:34.000 I was scared for Rose.
00:20:35.000 It was a really bad landing.
00:20:36.000 Landing on her neck like that was terrifying.
00:20:38.000 That's what scared me, just because we were in Brazil, too, and that crowd was crazy.
00:20:43.000 And everybody shot up and started screaming, and Rose was just laid out on the canvas, and I kind of was just wanting her corner to be in there with her, because she was just all alone about herself.
00:20:55.000 And I was worried that she wasn't going to get up.
00:20:57.000 I was like, hey, you guys wait to cheer until we see she's okay, because that can...
00:21:02.000 Parallel somewhere.
00:21:03.000 If you look at the impact, if you've seen the photograph of the landing itself, it's one of the worst ways you could ever land.
00:21:03.000 100%.
00:21:11.000 She's essentially head first with the neck sideways. 1.00
00:21:16.000 Flattened.
00:21:17.000 There was no space.
00:21:19.000 It's like someone was cranking on her neck.
00:21:21.000 It's horrible.
00:21:22.000 That was a bad landing.
00:21:24.000 I mean, the whole thing was bad.
00:21:25.000 She's going for the Kimura.
00:21:27.000 Jessica picks her up. 0.60
00:21:29.000 She doesn't lace a leg, and she holds on to the Kimura, which you just can't do.
00:21:34.000 You just can't do it.
00:21:34.000 You've got to let it go.
00:21:36.000 But she's held on to things before and caught arm bars and triangles.
00:21:43.000 It's one of those things.
00:21:44.000 You make a mistake.
00:21:46.000 Because I know people were talking about it being illegal to slam somebody like that.
00:21:51.000 She didn't do it on purpose.
00:21:52.000 She just tried to slam her. 1.00
00:21:53.000 I mean, she's just trying to lift her up and dump her down. 1.00
00:21:56.000 I mean, the illegal slamming is like when Minotauro fought Bob Sapp.
00:22:01.000 Do you remember that?
00:22:02.000 Minotauro fought Bob Sapp and Bob Sapp literally got him in a pile driver.
00:22:02.000 Nope.
00:22:07.000 And Bob Sapp was 370 pounds with abs and on everything that Mexico has to offer.
00:22:14.000 Every steroid that was available, Bob Sapp was on.
00:22:17.000 They said that he used to travel with like a briefcase filled with roids. 0.99
00:22:21.000 I mean, he was a goddamn science project at one point. 0.95
00:22:24.000 It was fascinating to watch, right? 0.98
00:22:26.000 Because I think, to this day, that was probably one of the greatest victories in all of MMA. Minotauro, who was...
00:22:33.000 He was outweighed by a good, solid 130, 140 pounds.
00:22:40.000 Like, legitimately.
00:22:41.000 And still got an armbar off of Bob Sapp.
00:22:44.000 Jamie, you got it?
00:22:45.000 Yeah, watch this.
00:22:47.000 So, look at the size difference.
00:22:49.000 First of all, just see the beginning of the fight.
00:22:52.000 So, he shoots. 0.93
00:22:53.000 He shoots.
00:22:54.000 But look at the size difference when you see them come out.
00:22:57.000 It is so crazy.
00:22:58.000 Bob Sapp was so big.
00:23:00.000 But look at this.
00:23:02.000 Boom. 0.99
00:23:03.000 Now, Minotauro's neck was fucked up from that forever. 0.98
00:23:07.000 Like, that haunted him his entire career. 0.98
00:23:10.000 Watch this.
00:23:12.000 Oh no!
00:23:13.000 See, he tucks his head a little bit at the last second so he doesn't catch it on the top of the head, but all of his weight, all of Bob Sapp's weight, look at that.
00:23:22.000 I don't even think he tucked it.
00:23:24.000 I think it just gave in.
00:23:25.000 And he's still going? 1.00
00:23:26.000 He kept going and he fucking submitted him! 0.98
00:23:29.000 Minotauro was one of the toughest guys that's ever walked the face of the planet. 0.98
00:23:32.000 Look at this.
00:23:33.000 He scoots out.
00:23:34.000 He escapes and gets on top of him.
00:23:37.000 This is crazy.
00:23:38.000 Yeah.
00:23:38.000 Well, look at the size difference.
00:23:40.000 There's like three different, four, five different weight classes.
00:23:43.000 I mean, Bob was so big. 0.99
00:23:45.000 And he's probably on EPO and fucking everything. 0.99
00:23:49.000 And look at that. 1.00
00:23:50.000 Just windmilling with his legs.
00:23:52.000 And he was trained by Maurice Smith.
00:23:55.000 You know, Maurice was training him.
00:23:56.000 So he was a legitimately trained athlete.
00:24:01.000 And he was so big.
00:24:03.000 So this is back in the day when there was like 10 minute rounds?
00:24:06.000 Mm-hmm.
00:24:07.000 10 minute first round.
00:24:08.000 So Minotaur, I believe it went into the second round though.
00:24:11.000 I want to say.
00:24:12.000 Oh my gosh.
00:24:14.000 I don't remember entirely whether it went into the second round, but I want to say it did.
00:24:18.000 Yeah.
00:24:19.000 Yeah.
00:24:20.000 I mean, look, he beat Ernesto Hus twice in kickboxing matches.
00:24:25.000 But it also goes to show you how hard Cro Cop punches, because Cro Cop flattened him with one punch.
00:24:31.000 Cro Cop broke his orbital bone with a straight left. 0.96
00:24:35.000 So Minotauro eventually gets him on his back, and then once he gets him on his back, because Bob Sapp, you can only keep 375 pounds going for so long.
00:24:45.000 I mean, he's just completely exhausted.
00:24:47.000 No matter how many steroids you do.
00:24:49.000 Yeah, so this is the end.
00:24:50.000 He ties up his arm and catches him in an arm bar and Bob Sapp taps.
00:24:55.000 And I was at my friend... 1.00
00:24:56.000 Fuck, whose house was I at? 1.00
00:24:58.000 But I was with Eddie Bravo when we saw this and we were screaming. 1.00
00:25:01.000 We couldn't believe it.
00:25:02.000 We couldn't believe it.
00:25:03.000 Because it was like a victory for...
00:25:05.000 That is amazing.
00:25:06.000 It was a victory for technique.
00:25:08.000 That's what it was.
00:25:09.000 It was a victory for jiu-jitsu.
00:25:11.000 It was a victory for technique over brawn.
00:25:13.000 It was a perfect example of technique over brawn.
00:25:16.000 Not that Minotaro doesn't have brawn and not that Bob Sapp doesn't have technique.
00:25:16.000 Yeah.
00:25:19.000 Absolutely. 0.99
00:25:20.000 But if they were the same size, Minotaro would have fucked him up. 1.00
00:25:22.000 For sure. 0.99
00:25:23.000 It would have been an easy fight for him.
00:25:25.000 And just whether the Stormman wasn't scared to be in there with them.
00:25:29.000 Fedor wouldn't fight him.
00:25:29.000 Yeah.
00:25:30.000 Fedor said, fuck that. 1.00
00:25:31.000 They offered Fedor a fight with Bob Sapp. 1.00
00:25:33.000 He's like, nah, I'm good.
00:25:34.000 And he fought Hongman Choi when Hongman Choi was like seven feet tall.
00:25:37.000 You remember that fight?
00:25:38.000 Caught him in... 0.95
00:25:39.000 It was one of the most ridiculous arm bars ever. 0.99
00:25:41.000 He caught him in an arm bar and the arm is as long as this fucking table. 0.99
00:25:44.000 It was so crazy. 0.98
00:25:46.000 He had to stretch his arms like this. 0.85
00:25:48.000 That was a ridiculous arm bar. 0.98
00:25:50.000 A ridiculous arm bar. 0.99
00:25:51.000 That's crazy. 0.95
00:25:52.000 You'll never see any fights like that happen nowadays.
00:25:54.000 Not anymore.
00:25:55.000 Well, I still think someone might do it.
00:25:59.000 Yeah, Ryzen could do it. 0.90
00:26:00.000 They still do fucked up things with Gabby Garcia. 0.90
00:26:02.000 Yeah, that's crazy. 0.97
00:26:04.000 Gabby Garcia is a science project and a half.
00:26:07.000 What is that?
00:26:07.000 That's crazy.
00:26:08.000 What's going on there?
00:26:09.000 Has she been beaten?
00:26:11.000 Not that I'm aware of.
00:26:13.000 How are they going to find a woman who's 240 pounds? 1.00
00:26:13.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:26:16.000 They're not.
00:26:17.000 She's 240 pounds, jacked. 1.00
00:26:19.000 And she's a legit black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
00:26:21.000 Yeah.
00:26:22.000 And she's, you know, she's legitimately tough.
00:26:24.000 I thought I saw a video of her grappling with Mackenzie Duran and Mackenzie like almost... 0.67
00:26:29.000 Mackenzie beat her. 0.67
00:26:30.000 Oh, did she?
00:26:31.000 I think Mackenzie beat her in a Jiu-Jitsu match. 1.00
00:26:32.000 In a Jiu-Jitsu match.
00:26:33.000 But in MMA, I don't think anybody's beating her. 1.00
00:26:35.000 Yeah.
00:26:35.000 I think Mackenzie either beat her or had a draw, won an advantage, something like that.
00:26:39.000 But...
00:26:42.000 It is what it is.
00:26:43.000 That's science.
00:26:44.000 Okay?
00:26:45.000 You're doing some stuff.
00:26:46.000 You're doing some stuff to people that's not...
00:26:49.000 Your body's not supposed to have that in there, lady. 1.00
00:26:51.000 It's not.
00:26:52.000 You know what I mean?
00:26:54.000 It's interesting, because like the Bob Sapp thing, you get to see what happens.
00:26:59.000 Okay.
00:26:59.000 Like, wow.
00:27:00.000 This is when someone just goes for it.
00:27:01.000 And when Pride, Ensign Inouye, was on the podcast, and Ensign's hilarious.
00:27:07.000 He was detailing the contract.
00:27:09.000 He was like, it's said in all capital letters, we will not test you for steroids.
00:27:13.000 They were like...
00:27:15.000 That's what Joey would tell me all the time.
00:27:17.000 Joey Villasenor.
00:27:18.000 He's been in my corner for the last couple of fights.
00:27:20.000 Joey's an excellent fighter.
00:27:21.000 And he would say that he said they almost encouraged it.
00:27:27.000 Not almost.
00:27:28.000 They basically did encourage it because they just wanted to see crazy things that came out of comic books.
00:27:35.000 They wanted you to be jacked.
00:27:35.000 Yep.
00:27:37.000 Yeah.
00:27:37.000 They wanted you to be gigantic.
00:27:38.000 Yeah.
00:27:39.000 I mean, as long as everybody's doing it, I guess.
00:27:42.000 I don't think...
00:27:43.000 I wouldn't want to do that, even if I had the choice to do it.
00:27:46.000 You wouldn't want to.
00:27:47.000 Right.
00:27:47.000 I wouldn't want to.
00:27:48.000 I get it.
00:27:49.000 Well, that makes sense.
00:27:50.000 And that's why I think people like you are important for MMA. Because you are...
00:27:53.000 You're a woman.
00:27:55.000 Yeah.
00:27:55.000 You seem like a woman.
00:27:56.000 You behave like a woman. 1.00
00:27:57.000 You look like a woman. 0.99
00:27:58.000 If someone says, that girl's a top 10 UFC fighter, you'd be like, what? 0.98
00:28:02.000 Mm-hmm.
00:28:03.000 Really?
00:28:03.000 No way.
00:28:04.000 She's so normal. 0.99
00:28:06.000 But if you saw Gabby Garcia, that girl's smashing people in Japan, you're like, I fucking believe it. 1.00
00:28:11.000 I gotta get the fuck out of this room. 0.99
00:28:14.000 Pushy hulks out and starts to flatten me. 0.98
00:28:16.000 I feel like it would take the joy out of a victory.
00:28:25.000 If you did steroids.
00:28:26.000 Well, you would become something different.
00:28:26.000 Yeah.
00:28:28.000 The reality is a woman becomes something different when she starts taking male hormones. 1.00
00:28:32.000 You just do.
00:28:33.000 You become something different.
00:28:34.000 Your tendons strengthen.
00:28:35.000 Your bone structure changes.
00:28:37.000 Your voice deepens.
00:28:39.000 You become much more like a man.
00:28:41.000 When you see transgender women, when a woman is a transgender man, she decides she wants to be a man. 0.99
00:28:49.000 They start taking testosterone. 0.79
00:28:50.000 They get beards.
00:28:52.000 They have all sorts of strange things happen down below and they start having a deeper voice and they sound like a man.
00:29:00.000 And that's exactly what happens to a woman when a woman takes steroids if she's not trying to transition. 1.00
00:29:05.000 It's the same thing.
00:29:06.000 You're just taking male hormones that make your muscles grow far larger than they're supposed to.
00:29:10.000 Yeah.
00:29:11.000 I remember watching a movie that they did in Thailand.
00:29:14.000 It's called Beautiful Boxer.
00:29:16.000 Have you seen that one?
00:29:17.000 Yes.
00:29:17.000 But it's the opposite.
00:29:18.000 He wanted to be a woman.
00:29:20.000 But I think he did it the right way, right?
00:29:21.000 If there's a right way to do it.
00:29:24.000 Well, he started as a man and then became a woman and kept fighting men.
00:29:29.000 And I think that someone should have told her at the time, like, let's just stop fighting.
00:29:29.000 Yes.
00:29:34.000 Let's stop fighting.
00:29:35.000 This is my take on it.
00:29:37.000 But she needed to keep fighting so that she could pay for her transition, right?
00:29:42.000 Catch-22, if there ever was one.
00:29:42.000 Yeah.
00:29:44.000 Yeah.
00:29:45.000 I don't know.
00:29:45.000 Yeah.
00:29:46.000 But was an elite fighter until the transition, and then you see the skills start to diminish because there's no more testosterone.
00:29:53.000 When she's fighting men...
00:29:55.000 But if she was fighting women, she would have a giant advantage still over women, and I don't think that's right either. 0.98
00:30:00.000 No, I don't think that's fair either.
00:30:01.000 No one does except transgender people. 1.00
00:30:01.000 No one does. 1.00
00:30:03.000 Transgender people and super progressive activists who have no idea how sports work.
00:30:09.000 Those are the people, the people that just want inclusiveness, and they just want everyone to be okay, and maybe this is the world I'm looking for.
00:30:17.000 I'm looking towards a world where everyone's included.
00:30:21.000 Yeah, good.
00:30:22.000 Have a transgender league.
00:30:23.000 Have a transgender division.
00:30:25.000 I'm cool with that.
00:30:26.000 I'll happily support them.
00:30:28.000 But you're pretending that that's a woman.
00:30:31.000 And it's not.
00:30:32.000 It's a male who's transitioning to a woman.
00:30:34.000 You have an XY chromosome. 0.74
00:30:36.000 It's a different thing.
00:30:38.000 I'm 100%. 0.90
00:30:39.000 If a woman says I want to fight a transgender woman, okay. 1.00
00:30:44.000 That's fine.
00:30:45.000 But for leagues to recognize that this is the same thing, how would you feel if all of the UFC's weight classes in the women's division were dominated by transgender women?
00:30:57.000 I would feel like there were some...
00:31:01.000 I feel like I should not say something.
00:31:03.000 Right, right, right.
00:31:04.000 I feel like I'm going to get caught up saying something that I shouldn't say.
00:31:06.000 Yeah, let me talk for you. 1.00
00:31:07.000 It's fucking bullshit. 1.00
00:31:09.000 It's fucking bullshit, right? 1.00
00:31:10.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:31:11.000 You don't have to say anything.
00:31:12.000 And that's how girls feel right now when there's sports being dominated in track and field. 1.00
00:31:16.000 Yeah, that's not fair.
00:31:18.000 It's not fair.
00:31:19.000 I mean, I guess for me, I've always been, especially like being a female in a male dominant sport, I've always, I guess if I can like to consider myself a feminist, not so much a feminist, but like when I go into the gym,
00:31:35.000 my teammates look at me as a fighter.
00:31:38.000 Like they don't look at me as a female fighter or anything like that.
00:31:41.000 They look at me as their teammate, you know what I mean?
00:31:43.000 And I appreciate that.
00:31:44.000 I appreciate that they treat me as an athlete and all of that good stuff.
00:31:49.000 But I feel like at the end of the day, girls need to fight girls and guys need to fight guys. 0.89
00:31:56.000 We have different strengths than the guys do and the guys have different strengths than the girls do. 0.91
00:32:00.000 And it's nice for us to have a place so that we can showcase our skills.
00:32:05.000 Yes, I agree.
00:32:06.000 I think the only problem that I have with that...
00:32:10.000 Transitioning thing is physical competition.
00:32:12.000 That's it.
00:32:13.000 Physical competition against the gender that you supposedly align with.
00:32:17.000 You can't do it.
00:32:18.000 But here's what you don't see.
00:32:20.000 Here's what you don't see.
00:32:21.000 You don't see a lot of transgender men who want to fight men. 1.00
00:32:25.000 You don't see a lot of women who are taking hormones to become a man who want to fight men. 1.00
00:32:31.000 Yeah, good fucking luck with that, ladies. 1.00
00:32:33.000 Good luck. 1.00
00:32:34.000 Stop.
00:32:35.000 Like, this idea that you just magically become a woman or you just magically become a man, it's just not true.
00:32:35.000 This is crazy.
00:32:42.000 And athletes recognize it and rational people recognize it, but there's so much pushback from progressive people who, it's like, what percentage of the population are we even talking about here?
00:32:52.000 I mean, it's not even 1%.
00:32:54.000 It's a very strange thing that it's taking over the conversation with bathrooms and competition and sports and so many different things.
00:33:02.000 I'm all for inclusiveness and I'm all for being open-minded and letting people do you.
00:33:08.000 Let them be themselves.
00:33:09.000 Be yourself.
00:33:10.000 Whatever yourself is.
00:33:11.000 I don't know what yourself is.
00:33:12.000 I don't know what you feel.
00:33:13.000 But you can't compete against women. 1.00
00:33:16.000 It's that simple.
00:33:17.000 It's really that simple.
00:33:18.000 It has to be something deeper where they, you know, and to me I think it goes back to like that mental, like a mental block where you need some, like a false sense of confidence.
00:33:31.000 I feel like.
00:33:31.000 Yes.
00:33:32.000 Well, it's like sandbagging.
00:33:33.000 It really is.
00:33:33.000 It is the ultimate sandbagging.
00:33:36.000 It's like, oh, I'm a woman.
00:33:37.000 Like, wait a minute. 1.00
00:33:38.000 Where the fuck did you get those hands? 0.99
00:33:41.000 It's really like the ultimate form of sandbagging. 0.99
00:33:43.000 I mean, for folks who don't know what sandbagging is, oh, I was going to bring up smokers, too, for folks who don't know what smokers is, if you listen to this podcast.
00:33:49.000 A smoker is small amateur fights that they have in gyms or little arenas or high school gyms and stuff like that. 0.78
00:33:55.000 But, um, uh, sandbagging is like, say if Michelle had a black belt in jujitsu and then entered into a judo tournament as a white belt and then just fucking flying armbar to everybody. 1.00
00:34:11.000 They'll be like, what the hell is this? 0.97
00:34:13.000 Where'd you get your white belt?
00:34:14.000 Like, how do you have a white belt?
00:34:16.000 But we've all seen things like that before.
00:34:17.000 Of course.
00:34:18.000 Everyone has seen things like that before.
00:34:19.000 There's people that pretend they're younger than they really are.
00:34:22.000 They pretend they're lighter than they really are.
00:34:24.000 Because they want to win.
00:34:26.000 This is no different.
00:34:27.000 It's no different.
00:34:28.000 It really is.
00:34:45.000 Mm-hmm.
00:35:09.000 If Minotauro and Bob Sapp were even, here's the fight. 0.94
00:35:12.000 Shoot.
00:35:12.000 Dang.
00:35:12.000 Takedown.
00:35:13.000 Armbar.
00:35:13.000 On his back.
00:35:14.000 Bang.
00:35:14.000 Fight's over.
00:35:15.000 It'd be like a couple minutes maximum and Minotauro would have armbarred him.
00:35:19.000 Yeah.
00:35:20.000 Well, you think it's because people like to see the mismatch and maybe like that underdog story where the person that is, you know, the underdog comes and becomes victorious?
00:35:30.000 Like Minotauro. 0.97
00:35:31.000 But like, again, Minotauro's neck is still fucked up to this day. 1.00
00:35:34.000 Mm-hmm. 0.99
00:35:35.000 You know, his neck bothered him his entire career from that one piledriver.
00:35:39.000 375 pounds, plus his weight, all on his neck. 0.98
00:35:43.000 It just shows you how fucking tough that guy is. 0.98
00:35:45.000 You know the Minotauro story? 0.98
00:35:46.000 He was run over by a truck when he was a kid.
00:35:48.000 That's why he has this giant scar on his back.
00:35:51.000 He was in the hospital for like a year.
00:35:52.000 The guy's an animal.
00:35:54.000 I mean, he's as tough as they come. 0.53
00:35:55.000 Yeah, he's like, I got hit by a truck, you're not going to do nothing to me.
00:36:00.000 You can't force everyone to be that tough.
00:36:03.000 I think it's important to have fairness.
00:36:06.000 This is why I'm so pro-USADA. I love what they're doing.
00:36:09.000 I love the fact that they're testing the shit out of people. 0.96
00:36:12.000 They're just showing up at people's houses at 6 o'clock in the morning. 0.99
00:36:14.000 Hey, wake up.
00:36:15.000 Time for a test.
00:36:16.000 But is it the same in every country?
00:36:20.000 That's a good question.
00:36:22.000 It's a very good question.
00:36:23.000 If someone's training in Russia or Germany or wherever, yeah, that's a very good question.
00:36:27.000 I do not know the answer to that.
00:36:29.000 Because I know that's kind of one of the concerns for some of the athletes that, yeah, it might be really strict here in the States, but in other states, is it as strict?
00:36:38.000 Right, because it is U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
00:36:41.000 That's USADA. Yeah.
00:36:43.000 That's a good question.
00:36:44.000 I'm just saying.
00:36:44.000 I don't know.
00:36:45.000 So what do you think?
00:36:46.000 You don't think it is?
00:36:47.000 I don't know.
00:36:48.000 I'll talk for you. 0.98
00:36:49.000 If there's something fucked up you need to say, just go like this. 0.98
00:36:52.000 I don't know. 0.98
00:36:53.000 I guess I just...
00:36:54.000 I can only be concerned with what's under my control.
00:36:58.000 Right.
00:36:58.000 So then I'm just going to train and I'm going to get as good as I can get and hopefully USADA can take care of the rest.
00:37:05.000 But for me to stress about it is just time wasted, I think, for myself.
00:37:10.000 Well, I do know of a case where there was a fighter who told me that there was a guy who was openly dirty, as far as what everybody knew.
00:37:20.000 And he knew that he was going to piss hot, so he went and did some seminars in another country.
00:37:26.000 Oh.
00:37:26.000 And just stayed over in another country and just moved around.
00:37:30.000 So you see this world-class fighter in these weird little gyms, and everyone's like, what is going on over there?
00:37:34.000 And the gentleman who told me, he said, listen, man, he's docking drug tests.
00:37:39.000 That's what he's doing over there.
00:37:40.000 That's crazy.
00:37:41.000 Yeah.
00:37:43.000 For sure, when TJ Dillashaw gets popped and you're like, wow, TJ, for a world title, he's getting popped?
00:37:51.000 How many people are getting away with this?
00:37:53.000 How many people got away with this?
00:37:55.000 It's just not worth it.
00:37:56.000 He lost a lot doing that, what he did.
00:37:58.000 Oh, yeah.
00:37:59.000 It's not worth it.
00:38:01.000 It's not worth it.
00:38:02.000 Ultimately, it's definitely not worth it.
00:38:04.000 Because this legacy's tainted.
00:38:05.000 But if you got away with it, is it worth it?
00:38:08.000 I mean, how many people got away with it?
00:38:10.000 Here's the question.
00:38:11.000 How many people retired and we never got to see their drug test from 2006, 2008?
00:38:18.000 Like, what were you taking?
00:38:19.000 What were you on?
00:38:20.000 Like, back when they used to have those silly drug tests where they would test you at the weigh-ins, which is basically like an intelligence test.
00:38:28.000 Like, hey, you still taking steroids?
00:38:30.000 Yeah.
00:38:31.000 Or did you stop a couple of weeks ago?
00:38:33.000 And the testing today is so much more sophisticated.
00:38:37.000 That's why people are getting popped for EPO and a bunch of things that were hard to find.
00:38:43.000 The thresholds.
00:38:44.000 This is the John Jones thing with the picograms.
00:38:57.000 We're good to go.
00:39:05.000 Two years ago, he would have tested clean.
00:39:07.000 Yeah.
00:39:08.000 But now, they're just way better.
00:39:10.000 Even if you're taking creatine, and that creatine is tainted, which is a lot of what these guys, Tim Means, that was his deal, he was taking a supplement that was tainted.
00:39:20.000 Quite a few guys have legitimately just taken over-the-counter supplements that they thought were clean, and they got something, just some tiny, that doesn't have any effect on their performance.
00:39:31.000 But it shows up.
00:39:31.000 Mm-hmm.
00:39:32.000 And it'll show up for months and weeks.
00:39:34.000 In John's case, like years.
00:39:36.000 It's been showing up for like a year and a half.
00:39:38.000 It comes on and off.
00:39:39.000 And when you're cutting weight, that's when it seems to come back.
00:39:42.000 That's when it seems to show.
00:39:43.000 All the water's gone?
00:39:44.000 Mm-hmm.
00:39:45.000 You're losing body weight.
00:39:45.000 You're losing fat.
00:39:47.000 Some of it's stored in fat, they think.
00:39:49.000 It's very confusing for them.
00:39:50.000 They're trying to figure it all out. 0.99
00:39:52.000 And then all these fucking people online are ranting and raving about picograms and this and the science experts and they think it's all bullshit that John's allowed to fight. 1.00
00:40:02.000 He should be banned for life. 1.00
00:40:04.000 You're not listening.
00:40:05.000 He tested negative and then he tested positive a week later.
00:40:09.000 And then he tested negative a week after that.
00:40:11.000 What's happening here?
00:40:12.000 Something weird's happening.
00:40:13.000 They're still figuring it out for themselves.
00:40:15.000 Yeah.
00:40:15.000 Exactly.
00:40:16.000 But I'm glad they're figuring it out.
00:40:18.000 Because now people get to see, like, hey, look, Jon Jones is out for all that time for other problems and then for the drug problems.
00:40:25.000 Like, this is a lot of money that guy lost.
00:40:25.000 Yeah.
00:40:28.000 Jon probably lost tens of millions of dollars.
00:40:30.000 Yeah.
00:40:31.000 But he's still young.
00:40:32.000 He's still young and he still, you know, hasn't hit his prime yet, I don't think.
00:40:32.000 Yeah.
00:40:37.000 No.
00:40:37.000 I think also, all that knowing that it can all be taken away from you probably tempered him.
00:40:46.000 Like, put him in a better place.
00:40:46.000 Yeah.
00:40:48.000 We realize, like, I still have this gift of incredible talent.
00:40:52.000 I mean, he's just a natural-born fighter.
00:40:55.000 He just knows how to fight.
00:40:55.000 For sure.
00:40:56.000 Some guys, they have all the technique, all the talent, but they don't know how to put it together.
00:41:02.000 Mm-hmm.
00:41:04.000 Yeah, that's his jam.
00:41:06.000 He just goes out there and he just does things on the fly that nobody would ever think of and it works.
00:41:11.000 Yeah, he tries things out.
00:41:12.000 It's crazy to watch him train because he's just super lasered in and focused and there's nothing.
00:41:18.000 The building could be getting bombed and it wouldn't matter.
00:41:21.000 He'd just be on the bag working on his technique.
00:41:24.000 Yeah, I believe it.
00:41:25.000 It's really cool to watch.
00:41:26.000 Yeah.
00:41:27.000 Well, he's the outlier, right?
00:41:29.000 I mean, there's special fighters.
00:41:31.000 There are outliers in the sport.
00:41:34.000 And from our era, it was like Anderson Silva, Mighty Mouse, Jon Jones.
00:41:39.000 Those are the real outliers.
00:41:39.000 Yeah.
00:41:41.000 When you just watch me, you just go, Jesus Christ.
00:41:44.000 Like Anderson, when he was in his prime, you would watch him.
00:41:47.000 And you would watch him set guys up.
00:41:49.000 And it's almost like he had cheat codes.
00:41:52.000 Like he could just see what they were doing.
00:41:53.000 He was just like, oh, I do this.
00:41:55.000 And you do that.
00:41:56.000 I do this.
00:41:57.000 And you do that.
00:41:57.000 Okay, well, I'm going to do this.
00:41:58.000 And I know you're going to do that.
00:42:00.000 And pop!
00:42:00.000 There it goes.
00:42:01.000 And he would just figure guys out.
00:42:03.000 It was wonderful to watch, though.
00:42:05.000 I feel like he opened up a door for all of the rest of us fighting.
00:42:10.000 I feel like with any good fighter, when you watch them fight, it opens up a door in your own mind like, oh, that's possible.
00:42:18.000 I can do that.
00:42:19.000 I feel like with Anderson Silva, he did that a lot with his movement, with his head movement, with his variety of punches and kicks and the angles at which they came in from.
00:42:31.000 I don't know.
00:42:32.000 I feel like Anderson Silva did that.
00:42:33.000 I feel like Ronda did that with her judo. 0.60
00:42:35.000 I feel like Machida did that with his karate.
00:42:40.000 I can go down the list of everybody, but I feel like it kind of goes in cycles.
00:42:47.000 It's great for me because I can watch them and I can implement new things.
00:42:50.000 I feel like that's why I've been able to be in the game for so long and still continue to grow and evolve because I get to watch other people.
00:43:00.000 And the things that they do and add that to my tool list.
00:43:04.000 Yeah, it changes the expectation of what's possible, right?
00:43:07.000 I think with Mighty Mouse, that was one of the best examples of that.
00:43:11.000 Because when I would watch Mighty Mouse fight, I would be like, show me someone who's better.
00:43:15.000 Show me someone who's ever been better than this guy.
00:43:18.000 Like, I've never seen anybody move better than this guy.
00:43:20.000 Like, he doesn't get hit.
00:43:21.000 Or if he gets hit, it's rare.
00:43:23.000 Like, every three or four fights, someone catches him.
00:43:26.000 Like, John Moraga caught him with a good straight punch.
00:43:28.000 Like, that was the last I remembered.
00:43:31.000 I'd like to see him run it back with Cejudo.
00:43:33.000 I would too.
00:43:34.000 That was such a close fight.
00:43:36.000 Very close fight.
00:43:37.000 And he kind of blew my mind how nonchalant he was about it all.
00:43:41.000 At the end, he's like, whatever.
00:43:44.000 But that's him.
00:43:46.000 DJ's just a special guy.
00:43:47.000 And he's another one who's like...
00:43:50.000 Couldn't be a nicer guy.
00:43:52.000 If you didn't know that he was one of the best fighters that's ever walked the face of the planet, he would go, oh, this friendly guy.
00:43:59.000 He's so nice and normal.
00:44:01.000 He talks like he's articulate.
00:44:03.000 He doesn't talk like a mean person.
00:44:05.000 It's a great example of something that's contrary to the stereotypes that people think of when they think of cage fighters.
00:44:15.000 Someone who's fighting, which is a weird word, right?
00:44:17.000 Yeah.
00:44:19.000 Are you doing cage fighting?
00:44:21.000 You do that stuff?
00:44:21.000 Yeah, like, you're a cage fighter?
00:44:22.000 You do UFC? Yeah, you do UFC. Yeah.
00:44:27.000 That's if you're fighting for Bellator.
00:44:29.000 Is that like UFC? What is that?
00:44:29.000 People are like, what's that?
00:44:31.000 What's Bellator?
00:44:33.000 Times are changing, though.
00:44:34.000 It's great.
00:44:35.000 I love the competition.
00:44:36.000 I think that's great that there's more options out there for the fighters.
00:44:39.000 Yeah.
00:44:39.000 Oh, for sure, yeah.
00:44:40.000 I think it's very important.
00:44:41.000 I think it's very important.
00:44:43.000 What's interesting, too, about this sport is that it's one of the only sports where you can go back from 1993 to 2019 and you could see massive evolution.
00:44:52.000 There's no other sport like that.
00:44:53.000 If you go back and watch boxing from 93, you're watching great boxing, world-class boxing.
00:44:58.000 You could take someone from 93 and put them into 2018. They would fit perfect.
00:45:04.000 Yeah, you think so?
00:45:05.000 Roy Jones Jr.? 1.00
00:45:06.000 Shit. 1.00
00:45:07.000 Roy Jones Jr., when he's in his prime, today everybody would be fucked. 1.00
00:45:11.000 Yeah, that's true. 0.99
00:45:11.000 Today. 0.99
00:45:12.000 They'd be fucked. 1.00
00:45:13.000 He was just something special. 0.98
00:45:15.000 It's just like the boxing mentality is so old school and you got to stick to the traditions.
00:45:21.000 It's kind of like taboo to see fighters switching stance, which some of them, the good ones are.
00:45:27.000 How's it taboo?
00:45:28.000 Josh, my husband, he boxed.
00:45:30.000 He had a lot of old boxing coaches that were like, you don't switch stance.
00:45:34.000 You stick to your stance and you perfect that stance. 1.00
00:45:36.000 Those people are out of their fucking mind. 0.99
00:45:38.000 You've watched Terrence Crawford, that's one of the things he does so brilliantly. 1.00
00:45:41.000 Yeah.
00:45:42.000 He is as good as a southpaw as he is orthodox, and it's one of the reasons why he's so difficult to solve. 1.00
00:45:48.000 Yeah.
00:45:48.000 Because if you think you've got to read on his timing, and then all of a sudden you're looking at a right jab instead of a left jab now, like, Maybe it's just that I watch MMA and are more focused on MMA than I am in boxing.
00:46:01.000 But from having my husband help me out and all this stuff, that's what he's saying is going to be the biggest evolution or what has started to evolve in boxing is that they are realizing, okay, you can use both sides now and that's going to trick them even more.
00:46:18.000 Well, Marvin Hagler was amazing at that.
00:46:20.000 It was one of Marvin Hagler's best skills, that he could fight southpaw as well as he could fight orthodox.
00:46:25.000 Hagler was one of the greatest fighters of all time, and he was a champion in the 80s.
00:46:29.000 Oh, okay.
00:46:30.000 You don't know Marvin Hagler?
00:46:31.000 No.
00:46:32.000 How dare you, Michelle? 0.98
00:46:34.000 The karate hottie?
00:46:35.000 You don't know the marvelous one?
00:46:36.000 I never even really watched boxing until I met my husband.
00:46:41.000 Really?
00:46:42.000 That's crazy.
00:46:42.000 Yeah.
00:46:43.000 Well, he introduced you to something awesome.
00:46:44.000 Yeah.
00:46:45.000 Yeah.
00:46:46.000 It's a good time right now to watch boxing.
00:46:47.000 You know, there's so many good boxers.
00:46:50.000 Yeah.
00:46:51.000 I think that's one of the things that he wants me to really work on in order to get my game to the next level is my boxing, you know.
00:46:58.000 Because my kicks are good.
00:47:00.000 My wrestling's, you know, getting better.
00:47:02.000 My jiu-jitsu's good.
00:47:03.000 And if I can put together my punches, we'll be okay, ready to get that belt.
00:47:10.000 Karate is an interesting martial art too that you are really good at because you have an excellent ability to use that front leg that most people don't have.
00:47:20.000 You have an awesome front leg side kick, a great front leg roundhouse kick.
00:47:23.000 And when you do that, I see that in your fight sometimes.
00:47:25.000 People are like, oh, I've got to adjust to this. 0.79
00:47:28.000 It's like a jab, but a jab that can fuck you up, like a jab that can knock you out.
00:47:33.000 Yeah, I think, I mean, I guess I owe that to my point firing days when everybody was bigger than me. 0.96
00:47:39.000 It didn't matter because it was by belts.
00:47:41.000 And so I was always a smaller one.
00:47:43.000 And trying to get the point off first, I would just use my front leg and kick it out there as fast as I could.
00:47:50.000 But I do, I feel like my kicks have lended to being, I've adopted them as jabs, you know?
00:47:58.000 Yeah.
00:47:59.000 Yeah, I love it.
00:48:01.000 I think it helps because then it kind of neutralizes the height difference.
00:48:04.000 Do you train a lot with Winklejohn?
00:48:06.000 I do.
00:48:07.000 Winklejohn, he was an excellent fighter, a really good kickboxer, and really good at both styles too, like leg kick style, but also good at like he had karate techniques as well.
00:48:18.000 He was very good at those transitions between those straight kicks and punches.
00:48:24.000 Yeah.
00:48:24.000 As well.
00:48:25.000 You know, that's the thing where a lot of people get confused.
00:48:28.000 It's like a no man's land between kicking and punching with people who are kicking specialists.
00:48:33.000 And you see it like even with elite fighters like Raymond Daniels as he's coming up in his kickboxing career.
00:48:39.000 It took a while before he could make that smooth transition between kicking and punching because Raymond would be on the outside and he was...
00:48:47.000 A world class, top of the food chain karate point fighter.
00:48:50.000 Yeah.
00:48:51.000 And then got into kickboxing. 0.97
00:48:52.000 And as long as he was at a distance, he was fucking people up. 0.87
00:48:56.000 But in the transition, the no man's land between the kicking and the punching, he looked awkward. 0.93
00:49:01.000 It took a while before he sort of...
00:49:01.000 Yeah.
00:49:03.000 So some guys like Joseph Valtellini and Nikki Holtzkin, they sort of exposed that gap, the no man's land gap.
00:49:10.000 That's a problem a lot of kickers have.
00:49:12.000 Yeah.
00:49:12.000 They have that problem with the gap from the kicking to the punching.
00:49:16.000 Mm-hmm.
00:49:17.000 I think that's one of the things that I had to, that was one of the things that I had to really work on.
00:49:17.000 Yeah, for sure.
00:49:23.000 And I think because I enjoy grappling and jujitsu that I went straight from kicking to clench up grappling.
00:49:34.000 And I kind of skipped the boxing part of it.
00:49:38.000 How much boxing are you doing now?
00:49:41.000 Quite a bit, actually.
00:49:42.000 Is that your main focus?
00:49:43.000 Yeah, especially off camp.
00:49:45.000 We don't have any game plans to work on.
00:49:48.000 We're working boxing and wrestling.
00:49:50.000 Now, when you say you're working boxing, are you just sparring boxing and hitting pads boxing, or are you trying to implement that into MMA training?
00:50:01.000 I would say both.
00:50:03.000 We're not sparring.
00:50:04.000 We're not sparring right now, boxing.
00:50:06.000 Just working on your hands?
00:50:08.000 Working on the hands, working on the footwork.
00:50:10.000 So we'll just do strictly boxing, but then we'll do, like you were saying, the transitions.
00:50:15.000 So kicks to boxing, and boxing to kicks, and then boxing to takedowns.
00:50:21.000 Having things to do when you don't have to think.
00:50:25.000 Knowing exactly what to do.
00:50:27.000 Oh, I'm in this position, there goes the knee.
00:50:28.000 I'm in this position, now I'm throwing a punch.
00:50:30.000 When you see someone going, I've got to do this, I've got to think.
00:50:35.000 Those transitions, when you're in higher pressure situations, that's when those transitions are the most awkward.
00:50:45.000 When you don't have a conditioned response.
00:50:47.000 Yeah, and I think that's the biggest thing that I've really been able to work on is the blending of all of it.
00:50:56.000 I feel like so much of us, so many of us, we train specific boxing, specific kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, whatever, but we never really blend it together.
00:51:06.000 And I think that's the most important part.
00:51:08.000 Well, that's why George was so great.
00:51:10.000 George St. Pierre was so amazing at transitions.
00:51:13.000 Like, you never knew what he was going to do.
00:51:15.000 Yeah.
00:51:16.000 He was so unpredictable.
00:51:17.000 He was going to punch you or he was going to take you down.
00:51:18.000 So everyone's worried about everything.
00:51:20.000 You didn't know what was coming.
00:51:23.000 Yeah, that's why I always encourage fighters, like, even if you're a really good striker, man, you've got to attempt takedowns.
00:51:29.000 You've got to keep people honest.
00:51:31.000 Yeah.
00:51:31.000 Because otherwise people are just going to settle in and never worry about your takedowns, and then they have an extra degree of comfort with their striking, and you can get caught with stuff you wouldn't get caught with otherwise.
00:51:41.000 Yeah, and there's just...
00:51:42.000 I just feel like in MMA, you have so many opportunities.
00:51:46.000 Like, why would you limit yourself from those opportunities?
00:51:50.000 Yeah.
00:51:50.000 I remember one of my fights...
00:51:54.000 I was fighting this girl who was like a 10-time boxer in MMA. And so I'm like, oh, this girl's coming into my world.
00:52:02.000 I'm going to show her what's up.
00:52:03.000 But then, and I was beating her the whole first round, kicking her out, keeping her out with kicks, keeping her out with punches. 1.00
00:52:10.000 I remember going back to my corner and saying, man, this is too easy.
00:52:13.000 Like, I'm, you know, I'm piecing this girl up.
00:52:15.000 And just me saying that to myself, I think something in my head switched.
00:52:20.000 But I went back out and ended up I think what happened was I told myself, okay, you're piecing her up with what you know.
00:52:32.000 Go out there and beat her at her own game. 1.00
00:52:35.000 Oh, Jesus.
00:52:38.000 Did you talk to your corner about that?
00:52:39.000 No, I think it was just like a mental, like, this is too easy.
00:52:43.000 I'm going to make it more challenging on myself.
00:52:45.000 I didn't tell my corner that.
00:52:47.000 It was just like, you know how sometimes when you're in a fight, you have like a million thoughts that go through your mind in a split second.
00:52:54.000 And that was one of them. 0.99
00:52:55.000 I'll show this bitch what's up. 1.00
00:52:56.000 Yeah, and at her own game, which is stupid because it's MMA. So I stood in front of her and then she cracked me and I saw stars and I stood in front of her and I didn't take her down and I was trying to exchange with her and she cracked me again. 0.99
00:53:10.000 And I was waiting for her to stop so it could be my turn.
00:53:15.000 And she never stopped.
00:53:18.000 And I got TKO'd.
00:53:22.000 Lesson learned, but I was just so stubborn in my thoughts that I was like, I'm going to beat her at her own game. 0.69
00:53:30.000 What are you talking about?
00:53:31.000 You're fighting MMA. I was so mad at myself after the fact because I beat myself.
00:53:38.000 I just beat myself when I went back out there.
00:53:40.000 Well, that's that old adage, you win or you learn.
00:53:43.000 And you obviously, this is something that stills in your mind to this day, you learned.
00:53:47.000 But that's part of what makes a champion.
00:53:50.000 Like that desire to show, I can beat you anywhere. 1.00
00:53:54.000 That crazy belief in yourself, like, oh, fuck this bitch up standing. 1.00
00:54:00.000 Those thought processes are so crazy. 1.00
00:54:02.000 The reason why you get so good in the first place is because you love challenges and you want to do this difficult thing.
00:54:08.000 So you literally made it more difficult.
00:54:12.000 Yeah.
00:54:12.000 I don't know why I would do that, but that is exactly why I continue to fight now.
00:54:18.000 I think I was nervous coming into the UFC because I was coming up from 105. I was talking to my husband and saying, what are we doing?
00:54:27.000 Do you think I can make the jump up and still hang with these girls? 1.00
00:54:31.000 Would you be fighting at 105 if the UFC had a 105?
00:54:35.000 I don't know.
00:54:36.000 It would depend.
00:54:40.000 I think it would have to be worth it.
00:54:43.000 Just to make the cut?
00:54:44.000 Yeah, I feel like my last couple of cuts at 105 were pretty brutal.
00:54:50.000 You're not supposed to ask a woman. 1.00
00:54:52.000 Your eyelashes were falling out?
00:54:54.000 Yeah, I was so dehydrated.
00:54:56.000 You know how your eyes sink in.
00:54:59.000 I remember wiping my eye and just looking down and a whole row of eyelashes were on my arm.
00:55:08.000 That's like when people get syphilis.
00:55:10.000 I don't know.
00:55:11.000 Teeth start falling out.
00:55:13.000 I was sickly for sure.
00:55:15.000 Wow.
00:55:16.000 They had to check your vitals after weigh-ins and the doctor wouldn't release me because he couldn't find my heartbeat for like an hour.
00:55:25.000 He couldn't find your heartbeat because you were so dehydrated?
00:55:28.000 Yeah.
00:55:29.000 Whoa.
00:55:30.000 So, I just think that also that last cut was, it was like, I did it too quickly, I think.
00:55:41.000 What do you walk around at?
00:55:43.000 Like 132, 134. And when you make the cut down to 115, how slowly do you do it?
00:55:50.000 I usually have that eight-week fight camp.
00:55:52.000 And so I do like pound, pound and a half, two pounds a week.
00:55:56.000 Yeah, so for you to get to 105, yeah, don't do that.
00:55:59.000 That sounds crazy.
00:56:01.000 Well, the last time I fought at 105, when I was fighting at 105, I was probably walking around at like 25. Still.
00:56:09.000 That's 20 pounds of weight.
00:56:12.000 For a 100-pound person, that is 20% of your body weight.
00:56:16.000 That's a significant amount to drain yourself.
00:56:18.000 I mean, if you think about a welterweight losing 20 pounds, it's a good cut.
00:56:21.000 But an atomweight person, that's so much weight.
00:56:25.000 I know.
00:56:26.000 I feel so much healthier now.
00:56:27.000 I feel like when I'm in camp, I can focus on training and having good energy.
00:56:33.000 You know, going 100% rather than going 70% and then going to do more cardio.
00:56:39.000 So I absolutely feel like more healthier.
00:56:42.000 I feel like I've been able to put muscle on.
00:56:43.000 I feel like I'm stronger and just happier, happier training.
00:56:48.000 Yeah, well, you're seeing that from so many fighters.
00:56:51.000 And that's one of the reasons why, to go back to this 1FC thing, I love what they're doing, that they've eliminated weight cutting.
00:56:57.000 They do hydration tests on people.
00:56:59.000 They make sure you're not cutting any weight.
00:57:00.000 And I think the UFC is missing the boat.
00:57:03.000 They want to test for steroids, which is fantastic.
00:57:06.000 100% support that.
00:57:08.000 They should test hydration, too.
00:57:10.000 Weight cutting is nothing but it's just sanctioned cheating.
00:57:15.000 That's all it is.
00:57:16.000 You're not 115 pounds.
00:57:19.000 But everybody is going to cut down to 115, and then you're probably going to go back up to when you fight, when you get into the cage, what do you think you weigh?
00:57:26.000 This last time I got back up to 128. Yeah, see, that's what you really weigh.
00:57:31.000 Why is everybody saying she's fighting at 115?
00:57:33.000 She's not fighting at 115. When you say Tyron Woodley fights at 170, no he doesn't.
00:57:38.000 No, he weighs 170. Kamaru Usman, he's not 170. He weighs 170 for a very small time.
00:57:49.000 Maybe it's just kind of like the old school mentality or just the idea of that being the last challenge that you go through before you step into the octagon that I enjoy.
00:58:01.000 And not that I enjoy it, but again, we're going back to challenges and it's like one of those things like, alright, take yourself to this point and if you can get through that without breaking, then me and you can go to battle.
00:58:15.000 Right.
00:58:16.000 I don't know.
00:58:16.000 There's just something to that for me.
00:58:19.000 I see what you're saying.
00:58:20.000 So it's another challenge.
00:58:22.000 There's a series of challenges.
00:58:24.000 There's training, there's the mental preparation, and there's the weight cut.
00:58:27.000 All these things are together.
00:58:29.000 And I feel like that's the last step.
00:58:34.000 It's a battle within yourself.
00:58:36.000 Is that the Death Star on your forearm?
00:58:38.000 What is that?
00:58:40.000 It looks like the Death Star from a distance.
00:58:42.000 I was trying to figure it out.
00:58:43.000 It's an actual silhouette of my husband and I. Oh, that's so cool.
00:58:48.000 So it's a circular silhouette with the mountains and the trees.
00:58:51.000 Oh, that's awesome.
00:58:52.000 Yeah.
00:58:52.000 That's really cool.
00:58:53.000 That's very unique.
00:58:54.000 Thank you.
00:58:55.000 It does kind of look like the Death Star, though.
00:58:57.000 It does. 0.99
00:58:57.000 From a distance, I was like, should I have a fucking Star Wars game? 0.99
00:59:01.000 Actually, I don't remember the last time I've seen Star Wars, but... 0.98
00:59:05.000 Yeah.
00:59:05.000 So the weight cut, though, the only problem with it is it's bad for you.
00:59:09.000 Yeah.
00:59:09.000 I mean, I understand that.
00:59:10.000 I don't cut much.
00:59:11.000 I probably cut four pounds of water weight.
00:59:14.000 Oh, that's great.
00:59:15.000 When I show up fight week, I'm probably like four or five pounds off.
00:59:19.000 Right.
00:59:19.000 But if you just ate normal, wouldn't you be healthier?
00:59:23.000 If instead of getting down within four pounds of the weight, because you're going to go up to 128 the day you fight, right?
00:59:31.000 So that's an additional 13 pounds.
00:59:33.000 Where's that coming from?
00:59:34.000 It's coming from somewhere.
00:59:36.000 So you're doing something.
00:59:37.000 I understand the thought process.
00:59:39.000 I was talking to one of the doctors about it in my last fight because he was like, so strange that you go through all of this just to be the same weight the next day.
00:59:46.000 I know, doctors are so smart. 0.83
00:59:50.000 And I just looked at him like, that is strange. 1.00
00:59:52.000 It's fucking stupid is what it is. 1.00
00:59:54.000 It really is. 1.00
00:59:55.000 For the sport.
00:59:57.000 Not you personally, but it's what you have to do if you want to compete in the sport.
01:00:01.000 I guess just because I've been doing it for so long.
01:00:03.000 And in my head, it's like, you know, there are only a couple things you have to do as a fighter.
01:00:07.000 Cutting weight is one of them.
01:00:08.000 If you can't do that, then, you know.
01:00:10.000 It is hard, I feel.
01:00:13.000 It's a process that you have to go through and you have to be mentally prepared to go through it.
01:00:18.000 And if you do it right, it should only be water that you're cutting, even though that's silly to do.
01:00:26.000 I don't know how to...
01:00:26.000 It's silly to do.
01:00:28.000 It's not good.
01:00:28.000 It's never good to just cut that water.
01:00:30.000 It's just not.
01:00:31.000 It's not good for you.
01:00:32.000 But...
01:00:33.000 If you do it intelligently where you're not cutting too much weight, it's not that bad.
01:00:38.000 But so many people are doing these brutal 30-pound weight cuts.
01:00:42.000 I feel like at that point, it's not a benefit for you.
01:00:46.000 For some people, they are the bigger person coming into the yacht to go on the next day.
01:00:51.000 But you're going to reach a certain point where cutting weight is not a benefit for you.
01:00:56.000 Maybe.
01:00:58.000 If you can do it and you pull it off, especially if you're young and you figure out how to do it correctly and replenish your electrolytes, it is an advantage.
01:01:07.000 It should be bigger.
01:01:07.000 But the reality is whatever weight class that is, that's not what you weigh.
01:01:12.000 You don't really weigh that much.
01:01:14.000 It's crazy.
01:01:16.000 It should be about skill versus skill.
01:01:19.000 It shouldn't be about who's got the best scientists.
01:01:21.000 I agree.
01:01:23.000 So, I mean, so what do you think?
01:01:25.000 You think Andrade would still be a 115-er?
01:01:27.000 No chance.
01:01:28.000 No chance? 1.00
01:01:29.000 Not a fucking chance in hell. 1.00
01:01:31.000 No, no, no. 1.00
01:01:33.000 She's bigger too. 1.00
01:01:34.000 She fucking struggles. 1.00
01:01:35.000 She struggles for 115. But then you've got Valentina. 1.00
01:01:39.000 It's like, I think that weight class, it's really interesting, right?
01:01:45.000 When you're talking about weight classes, if you're talking about the difference between 105 pounds and 115 pounds, it might only be 10 pounds, but it's a giant percentage of your body weight.
01:01:54.000 Yeah.
01:01:55.000 And then you look at MMA in the men's division and you have, you know, 155 and you have 170. You have that 15-pound gap.
01:02:02.000 That's a big gap.
01:02:03.000 It's a giant gap.
01:02:05.000 I think this should be every 10 pounds.
01:02:07.000 Every 10 pounds for men.
01:02:09.000 And for women, I think there's a real good argument that it should be every 5 pounds. 1.00
01:02:12.000 But if Dana heard this, he would find whatever hairs he's got left and start plucking them out of his head. 1.00
01:02:17.000 Tell Rogan to shut the fuck up! 1.00
01:02:19.000 Plucking his eyebrow hairs. 1.00
01:02:20.000 He doesn't even like the idea of a 165. I'm like, god damn, that's a no-brainer. 0.98
01:02:24.000 Yeah, there's plenty of fighters out there that are willing to fight and just give them a place to do so. 0.98
01:02:31.000 And guys who would be champions because that's their real natural weight class.
01:02:35.000 The in-betweens.
01:02:36.000 I think that what one FC is doing in terms of weight cutting is the way to do it.
01:02:40.000 But the other side is they're not doing the same thing that USADA is doing in terms of steroids.
01:02:45.000 So they are able to take steroids.
01:02:47.000 100%.
01:02:47.000 100%.
01:02:48.000 Talk to guys who compete over there and it's like, yeah, I mean, there's some...
01:02:53.000 Testing.
01:02:53.000 So would you rather fight somebody that's heavier than you or somebody that's taking steroids?
01:02:58.000 Very good question. 0.99
01:02:59.000 Because if they were not just taking steroids but also taking EPO, there's a lot of different shit that people can take. 0.97
01:03:05.000 They can give you more endurance. 0.98
01:03:06.000 EPO is a scary one because the person has more gas in their tank to beat you.
01:03:12.000 They can hit you, they can take shots better, they can recover better, and then they can come after you and then they'll have more gas in the tank than maybe they can put you away.
01:03:21.000 I'd rather fight somebody that was heavier than me and depleted from cutting water weight than somebody that was taking steroids or EPOs.
01:03:29.000 For a woman, I think for sure.
01:03:31.000 For women, there's a real argument that once someone has ever taken steroids, that you've altered your chemistry enough and your physiology enough that you're forever going to have some sort of an advantage. 1.00
01:03:43.000 So then there's nothing you can do about that.
01:03:46.000 Maybe deduct a point before you even get in the octagon?
01:03:48.000 That's not even good enough.
01:03:49.000 So many KOs people, right?
01:03:51.000 Yeah, that's true.
01:03:52.000 How often do you spar?
01:03:55.000 I would say heavy sparring once a week.
01:03:58.000 Once a week.
01:03:59.000 So we do...
01:04:04.000 Like MMA grappling on Mondays.
01:04:07.000 Tuesdays is a heavy sparring.
01:04:09.000 It's a 16-ounce let's throw down sparring.
01:04:13.000 Wednesdays is wrestling.
01:04:14.000 Thursdays is MMA glove sparring.
01:04:19.000 So it's kind of more just accuracy, like light on the striking, heavy on the grappling.
01:04:25.000 And then Fridays, technical work, technique, stuff like that.
01:04:29.000 Now, you're at a gym.
01:04:31.000 You're at Jackson, Winkle John, which is one of the best gyms on the planet Earth, but also a gym that's filled with savages.
01:04:37.000 I mean, there must be a lot of chest bumping and a lot of people that are trying to test people.
01:04:43.000 And there's got to be girls... 1.00
01:04:56.000 Yeah.
01:05:03.000 Are they smoking cigarettes?
01:05:05.000 Some of them.
01:05:06.000 That's weird. 0.98
01:05:07.000 Fighters are crazy.
01:05:08.000 You get the funniest, coolest stories from meeting fighters all around the world.
01:05:13.000 Jackson's is a shark tank.
01:05:16.000 You're not going there to find Nemo.
01:05:21.000 You're fun at Jaws.
01:05:22.000 Yes, exactly.
01:05:24.000 So you have to have a good set of skills before you get there in order to kind of hold your own.
01:05:29.000 We do actually have an amateur team right now that...
01:05:35.000 It's run by Joey Vissenior and he's done an amazing job with the amateur team.
01:05:40.000 We've kind of been able to separate the classes in that sense where Joey is kind of overseeing all of the amateur fighters and he's building these amateur fighters and when he feels like they're ready to come Some.
01:06:15.000 Some.
01:06:18.000 Uh, yeah.
01:06:19.000 It's crazy if you ever, like, go into the gym and see, like, um, when you see, like, amateurs or people that have, like, zero training spar versus, like, professional fighter spar.
01:06:31.000 Yeah.
01:06:32.000 It's crazy.
01:06:32.000 It almost looks more dangerous.
01:06:34.000 Yeah, it is more dangerous.
01:06:35.000 I would not want to be in that, in, like, the cage with some of those people that, like, because you just don't know where the punches or kicks are coming from.
01:06:42.000 And they're all coming full blast.
01:06:43.000 Exactly, 100%.
01:06:45.000 Yeah, they don't have any control.
01:06:46.000 Yeah.
01:06:46.000 Well, I always say that about jiu-jitsu.
01:06:48.000 Jiu-jitsu is the same thing.
01:06:50.000 The last thing you want to do is grapple with a really strong guy who's about to get his blue belt.
01:06:55.000 Yeah.
01:06:56.000 Oh, geez.
01:06:57.000 Yeah.
01:06:58.000 He just spazz out on you.
01:06:58.000 Everybody's eagles gets in the way.
01:07:01.000 I think that's why they match up high level with low level, don't you think?
01:07:03.000 Sure.
01:07:04.000 So someone can control you and calm you down.
01:07:07.000 Yeah.
01:07:08.000 I love jujitsu.
01:07:09.000 I can't wait to, you know, to get my black belt in jujitsu.
01:07:13.000 And I think it's kind of brought me back to my more traditional background where, you know, there's a little bit more structure when it comes to that.
01:07:22.000 The belts and things.
01:07:23.000 Are you training with the gi?
01:07:24.000 Mm-hmm.
01:07:25.000 Yeah.
01:07:25.000 Now, how much of that do you use a lot of grips?
01:07:29.000 Like, do you grab collars and sleeves and things like that?
01:07:32.000 I try.
01:07:32.000 You do?
01:07:33.000 I try to force myself outside of my comfort zone because I am so used to grabbing wrists, grabbing shoulders, and, you know, right at the crick of the elbows and stuff like that.
01:07:42.000 And I find myself going for those grips because that's just what I've done for the last decade.
01:07:49.000 Mm-hmm.
01:07:49.000 Because I am stepping into their world, I want to learn the grips, and I want to learn all of that stuff.
01:07:57.000 Yeah, I mean, it's great if you want to compete in jiu-jitsu with a gi. 1.00
01:08:01.000 But I think for MMA, I think the best...
01:08:06.000 The benefit of jujitsu with a gi for MMA is defensive for submissions because you get caught in things you can't power out of them because it's not slippery.
01:08:15.000 And I'm slippery.
01:08:17.000 I love no gi because I can slip out of things and I'll just wait until I have a little bit of space and then I'm out. 1.00
01:08:24.000 Yeah, I'm just...
01:08:25.000 And I'm just out, but I can't do that in gi.
01:08:28.000 So what I'll do a lot of times is I'll go train gi, and I'll do the technique class, and then when it's time to go do live rolling, I just take my gi off, and then I go, no gi.
01:08:38.000 That's smart.
01:08:39.000 So that way everything you're doing is applicable in MMA, because one of the things we used to see in the early days of MMA, you see these gi world champions, like elite level world champions, and they'd fight in MMA, and they lost all of their technique. 0.98
01:08:53.000 Because everything was collars and sleeves and pants and everything was grabbing things.
01:08:59.000 Whereas instead of, now they try to go to cable grips or overhooks and underhooks and they're all confused.
01:09:04.000 Like their technique is off.
01:09:05.000 And they would be like a blue belt or a purple belt.
01:09:08.000 World champions!
01:09:09.000 Yeah, I think it's great.
01:09:11.000 Like my professor now, he, so I'll be rolling with his wife or some of his students and Like, it's weird because they're getting me ready for my fights, but I'm also getting them ready for Worlds and stuff like that.
01:09:25.000 So depending on who's getting who ready is what he'll call out if we're going.
01:09:29.000 And I'm, you know, I'm sitting in their guard.
01:09:33.000 He'll tell them that they have to get active. 0.98
01:09:35.000 They're like, he'll straight up say, if she was fighting, you should just be punching the face. 0.80
01:09:39.000 You got to move. 0.95
01:09:39.000 You got to do something, you know? 0.95
01:09:41.000 So I think it's good just to give them a different perspective as well.
01:09:45.000 Have you ever watched combat jiu-jitsu?
01:09:47.000 Uh, I've seen a couple where you get to slap them in the face and stuff like that.
01:09:51.000 Yeah, I've seen some of it.
01:09:53.000 That's interesting because it shows you where there are these gaps where like, hey, this is an MMA, but if it was, you'd be getting pounded on right here.
01:10:01.000 Like, you can't just hang out.
01:10:03.000 Like, there's moments in Jiu-Jitsu that are unrealistic in self-defense situations or in a fight situation.
01:10:08.000 Yeah, and that's where I get frustrated, but it's good. 0.96
01:10:10.000 I need that frustration because I'll be in a position and in my head I'm like, I could just punch you right now in the face! 0.99
01:10:16.000 Yeah! 0.95
01:10:17.000 But I can't because we're grappling.
01:10:20.000 So your schedule that you're laying out, is this a schedule of Jax and Winklejohn?
01:10:25.000 Yeah.
01:10:25.000 Is this just their schedule?
01:10:26.000 Yeah, that's what I do in the mornings at the gym.
01:10:29.000 So who sets up, like, when you're in camp, when you have to do, you know, you've got a fight, it's 12 weeks from now, who sets up your schedule?
01:10:39.000 I think what we do is we get a fight scheduled and then we get all the coaches in together.
01:10:46.000 And so my jiu-jitsu coach, I go to Gracie Baja for jiu-jitsu.
01:10:49.000 So jiu-jitsu, wrestling, you know, Coach Jackson, Coach Wingo John, Joey Villasenor, and my husband.
01:10:57.000 And my husband's with me all the time, so he kind of oversees everything.
01:11:01.000 And we just sit down and we talk about all the things we need to get together.
01:11:05.000 I do one private with Coach Jackson a week.
01:11:08.000 I do two privates with Coach Wink a week.
01:11:10.000 I do a private with Coach Villasenor, and then I do all those in the morning.
01:11:14.000 And then I work out at my house as well, and then I do jujitsu.
01:11:19.000 What do you do at your house?
01:11:21.000 It depends on the day.
01:11:23.000 Sometimes we do simulations.
01:11:25.000 We'll do like round simulations.
01:11:26.000 Sometimes it's just hardcore cardio.
01:11:29.000 Sometimes it's just technical.
01:11:30.000 Do you have something set up in your garage or something?
01:11:32.000 Yeah.
01:11:32.000 That's nice.
01:11:33.000 We got a home gym.
01:11:33.000 We got a clear light sauna.
01:11:36.000 We got a feral health.
01:11:38.000 What's a clear light sauna?
01:11:39.000 It's an infrared sauna.
01:11:41.000 And then we have a cold plunge.
01:11:43.000 Oh, nice.
01:11:45.000 So you can get something in at home.
01:11:47.000 Everything.
01:11:48.000 If we needed to, we could do our whole camp at home.
01:11:50.000 Oh, that's great.
01:11:50.000 But I really enjoy being at the gym around my teammates and around my coaches and just pulling energy from them.
01:11:58.000 Sure, sure.
01:11:59.000 What about strength and conditioning?
01:12:00.000 How often are you doing that?
01:12:02.000 I do more strength and conditioning when I'm out of camp.
01:12:05.000 So like right now I'm doing strength and conditioning like Three or four times a week.
01:12:10.000 When I'm in camp, it depends on my body and it depends on what I'm needing at the time.
01:12:17.000 But I usually once or twice a week.
01:12:22.000 And then I run just for maintenance, just for meditative running, nothing hard.
01:12:30.000 So longer distance but slower?
01:12:32.000 Yeah, but not even too long, like three miles.
01:12:36.000 Nothing crazy.
01:12:37.000 That hill that Jackson loves to throw people up, what is that all about?
01:12:42.000 That looks crazy.
01:12:43.000 It is crazy.
01:12:47.000 Coach Jackson always says, if the mountain can't beat you, nobody can beat you.
01:12:51.000 It's like Mother Nature.
01:12:52.000 Mother Nature's a mother. 1.00
01:12:55.000 There's something about that steep-ass hill, too.
01:12:57.000 You watch everybody, the whole team running up it.
01:13:00.000 It's crazy because, well, there's that one, but then Coach Wink has another one, and that one's just insane.
01:13:06.000 You can't sprint up it.
01:13:07.000 You, like, crawl up it.
01:13:08.000 Really? 0.98
01:13:09.000 Yeah, it's ridiculous. 0.82
01:13:10.000 How steep is it? 0.87
01:13:11.000 It's so steep, you can't run.
01:13:12.000 You have to, like, basically, the first three sprints, there's ten sprints to the top, and then you...
01:13:20.000 Slowly jog back down because it's really steep.
01:13:23.000 But the first three, you really can't sprint up, but you kind of have to bear crawl up the mountain.
01:13:29.000 As fast as you can.
01:13:30.000 As fast as you can.
01:13:32.000 But the one, the Hill of Tears is crazy because...
01:13:36.000 That's what they call it?
01:13:36.000 The Hill of Tears.
01:13:37.000 Yeah.
01:13:38.000 It's like it goes up, it goes up, and then it goes up.
01:13:43.000 So like when you think you're almost there, it like cranks up even harder and then you have to get to the top and it'll test you for sure.
01:13:52.000 It can break you.
01:13:54.000 Well, that camp is known for its endurance.
01:13:57.000 Like, fighters that come out of that camp are known for having great cardio.
01:14:01.000 Yeah.
01:14:02.000 And how often does Jackson or Winklejohn make everybody do those hills?
01:14:06.000 I think it just depends.
01:14:08.000 We used to do them as a team quite a bit on the weekends.
01:14:14.000 But, you know, Coach Jackson, Coach Winkle...
01:14:15.000 Is this it right here?
01:14:16.000 Yep.
01:14:16.000 Oh, that's me.
01:14:18.000 That's my sister. 0.95
01:14:18.000 That's you and your sister. 0.95
01:14:20.000 That's my dog, my Dobie.
01:14:22.000 It doesn't look like anything, really.
01:14:24.000 Oh, it looks like it to me.
01:14:26.000 I'm used to running hills.
01:14:28.000 I know what it's like.
01:14:29.000 That looks terrible.
01:14:31.000 Looks like that.
01:14:32.000 Yeah, that's what it feels like.
01:14:35.000 Yeah.
01:14:36.000 It's amazing how gravity is one of the best things to work with.
01:14:40.000 Like, get a good pitch, good steep angle, and try to run up that.
01:14:45.000 It's one of the best things for strength and conditioning, for just conditioning your lungs and your ability to recover.
01:14:50.000 Yeah.
01:14:51.000 Yeah, I love it.
01:14:53.000 I think that, again, it's another one of those things that...
01:14:58.000 Can really break you.
01:15:01.000 And I think it's just like a theme, like a consistent theme in fighting is will you break?
01:15:11.000 If you break, then you're not meant for it, you know?
01:15:15.000 Or maybe you are and you just need to heal up and go back at it and try it again.
01:15:20.000 Yeah.
01:15:21.000 In terms of your mental endurance, that's what we're talking about, right?
01:15:24.000 We're talking about fortitude and your spirit, your indomitable spirit.
01:15:28.000 If you go back to when you first started fighting versus now, your tolerance must be through the roof.
01:15:35.000 What you can tolerate, what you can endure, and your belief in yourself.
01:15:40.000 All that stuff, I feel, evolves just like your skills do.
01:15:44.000 Yeah, 100%.
01:15:45.000 But it's crazy too because we all have our own separate journeys and I feel like when you first start fighting, just like when you're a kid and you jump off of things and you're fearless because you don't know what it feels like to get hurt and then you break your leg and then you're like,
01:16:00.000 well, I'm never doing that again.
01:16:01.000 I feel like it's the same in fighting.
01:16:03.000 When you see a lot of amateur fighters or new fighters, they go out there and they just do whatever because they're fearless.
01:16:10.000 They've never been knocked out.
01:16:11.000 They've never been hit.
01:16:12.000 They've never broken anything.
01:16:13.000 And so they're just going to go out there and be fearless.
01:16:17.000 And then they get knocked out or submitted.
01:16:20.000 And then the next time they go out, they're not as free.
01:16:23.000 And I think the true test is to see if you can deal with those challenges and allow it to make you grow versus...
01:16:37.000 You know, petrify you and make you go backwards.
01:16:42.000 Do you do any psychological training?
01:16:45.000 Do you have a mental coach or a hypnotist or anything along those lines?
01:16:48.000 I do.
01:16:48.000 I have a sports psychologist, Dr. Shannon.
01:16:50.000 And he's been working with me for my last three fights and I've won all three fights.
01:16:56.000 And I think that's a big reason why, for sure.
01:16:59.000 Yeah, I think that is a giant overlooked factor.
01:17:04.000 And some people get along great without it.
01:17:06.000 But could they be even better with it?
01:17:09.000 Absolutely.
01:17:09.000 Yeah, I think so as well.
01:17:10.000 Absolutely.
01:17:12.000 There's so much that goes into fighting that I think people don't see.
01:17:15.000 I think it's just like with anything in life.
01:17:17.000 How long it takes to make a movie versus the actual movie.
01:17:22.000 Yeah.
01:17:23.000 What goes into that 15 minutes of a fight that nobody even knows?
01:17:29.000 Not just 8 weeks, but your entire training before that.
01:17:35.000 For me, I've been doing martial arts since I was 10 and fighting professionally for over 10 years.
01:17:43.000 So it's an accumulation of all of those things, but each fight presents its own problem, and if you're not mentally prepared for it, if you're not prepared physically, if you're not prepared spiritually, emotionally, hormonally,
01:17:58.000 if that's even a word.
01:18:00.000 It is, it is.
01:18:02.000 Everything has to line up that one night, those 15 minutes or 25 minutes in order for you to win and you can definitely beat yourself before you step into the octagon.
01:18:13.000 So what kind of stuff do you work on with your psychologist without giving too much away?
01:18:19.000 I talked to him about this all the time because it's like my secret sauce, right?
01:18:22.000 But how he explains this is everybody knows what you're supposed to do, but you have to put in the work.
01:18:28.000 Just like physically you have to put in the work.
01:18:30.000 Like I can sit up here and I can tell you what I do, but it's not going to make a difference unless you actually put in the work to strengthen your mind mentally.
01:18:40.000 But we do a lot of...
01:18:44.000 So your opponent, it's not like you can practice sparring them because you've never fought them before.
01:18:53.000 And so how he explains it to me is, it's just a repetition, you know, of the mind.
01:19:00.000 And...
01:19:04.000 So you just have to really, I think, explore your imagination.
01:19:09.000 And for us, we practice the fight in our head.
01:19:15.000 And some days are harder than others.
01:19:19.000 Sometimes I win the fight in the first 10 seconds of the round.
01:19:23.000 It's all five rounds and it's a war and I win that way. 1.00
01:19:28.000 But you have to see yourself going through every different scenario.
01:19:32.000 And there are millions in MMA. And you just practice them over and over and over.
01:19:36.000 So it's essentially just going through that?
01:19:39.000 Or do you prepare your mindset?
01:19:43.000 What we do is...
01:19:45.000 For me, I have a set of power words is what he calls them.
01:19:51.000 Power words.
01:19:53.000 Want to tell us what they are?
01:19:54.000 And so...
01:19:55.000 Yeah, I can.
01:20:00.000 Confidence.
01:20:03.000 Flow.
01:20:06.000 Vicious.
01:20:10.000 I think I'm trying to see.
01:20:13.000 Mom champ.
01:20:14.000 Mom champ?
01:20:15.000 Yeah.
01:20:16.000 Because you want to be the first mom champ.
01:20:17.000 Yes, sir.
01:20:18.000 Um...
01:20:23.000 Healthy?
01:20:29.000 There are a couple of others as well.
01:20:32.000 But the one word is not just a word.
01:20:38.000 It's like a whole thought process.
01:20:39.000 So when I say one word, it feeds into an entire feeling, if that makes any sense.
01:20:47.000 And so instead of having to have a conversation in my mind, which takes way too long, I just say confidence, and it takes me where I need to be.
01:21:00.000 And eventually, you shouldn't even have to do that.
01:21:04.000 You should just be in the moment and just allow your mind to connect with your body.
01:21:13.000 Do you do any meditating at all?
01:21:16.000 Yeah.
01:21:17.000 I mean, I would say it's kind of a meditative...
01:21:21.000 I would say it's more of a practice than it is meditation because I'm not trying to clear my mind.
01:21:28.000 I'm really trying to focus on something specific.
01:21:32.000 Right.
01:21:32.000 But outside of that, you don't meditate.
01:21:35.000 I wouldn't say so.
01:21:36.000 Maybe in my runs.
01:21:38.000 Sometimes when I run, that's when I clear my mind.
01:21:42.000 How about you?
01:21:43.000 Yeah, I've been doing it a little bit, but most of what I do, I do when I get in the tank, float tank.
01:21:48.000 I like float tanks.
01:21:49.000 Do you use one?
01:21:50.000 I have before.
01:21:51.000 It feels like you're floating in space.
01:21:53.000 Yeah, it's amazing.
01:21:54.000 Does Jackson's have one?
01:21:55.000 No.
01:21:56.000 They should have one.
01:21:57.000 We should, huh?
01:21:58.000 Except you wouldn't want to go in there after God. 0.93
01:22:00.000 It's kind of disgusting.
01:22:01.000 We have a hot sauna at the gym, and there's tons of people.
01:22:05.000 There's tons of people, so it gets good use.
01:22:08.000 Yeah.
01:22:08.000 No, I'm sure.
01:22:09.000 The hot sauna though is different than a float tank because a float tank is so personal.
01:22:13.000 It's just one little in there and you're naked.
01:22:15.000 Uh-huh.
01:22:17.000 They showed me yours and it felt hotter than the ones that I've ever done.
01:22:21.000 It's the right temperature.
01:22:22.000 Is it?
01:22:23.000 Yeah.
01:22:23.000 Okay.
01:22:24.000 94 degrees.
01:22:25.000 That's what it should be.
01:22:26.000 Yeah, it should be the same as the surface of your skin.
01:22:28.000 As your body temperature, right?
01:22:29.000 Yeah.
01:22:29.000 Yeah.
01:22:29.000 Because it was crazy.
01:22:30.000 I remember doing it one time and...
01:22:34.000 I kind of drifted off and I remember almost waking up and feeling like I was like floating in space.
01:22:39.000 Yeah, sure.
01:22:40.000 Almost like kind of panicked because I didn't have a sense of where my body was.
01:22:47.000 Yeah, that's what triggers these weird psychedelic states.
01:22:49.000 But if you can find one and use it on a regular basis, it works great with visualization and a lot of athletes.
01:22:55.000 UFC and other sports as well, they use it for visualization.
01:23:01.000 They'll think about passes, like throwing a pass and then watching someone catch it.
01:23:06.000 They'll visualize things and go through the technique in their head.
01:23:11.000 And I've done that with jiu-jitsu as well.
01:23:13.000 I've done that with certain techniques that I was really trying to learn.
01:23:15.000 You could do it as if you're rolling.
01:23:18.000 You're just picturing your body going through the different positions.
01:23:23.000 Yeah.
01:23:24.000 That's basically what we do with the mental training.
01:23:28.000 Yeah.
01:23:30.000 It'd probably just take it up a notch in the float tank. 0.93
01:23:34.000 Yeah, I'm sure.
01:23:35.000 But a lot of times, like, when I meet up with Dr. Shandon, we meet up at noisy places like Starbucks or, you know, or at a coffee shop or something like that.
01:23:47.000 And it's because that life is always going to have distractions.
01:23:52.000 Oh, that's interesting.
01:23:53.000 And you need to be able to focus with distractions, especially me.
01:23:57.000 There's so many things going on in my life with being a mother and a wife that sometimes I can use the distractions as an excuse to justify why I'm not getting things done or this or that.
01:24:09.000 And so that's something that I've really been working hard at is to not use those as excuses, but more so to allow the distractions to happen and choose to stay focused anyways.
01:24:26.000 There's quite a few women's MMA fighters now, but it's still small in comparison to men.
01:24:32.000 When you meet young girls that look up to you, do you recognize that you have a very critical and it's a very small role in terms of a small amount of people providing that role as role models?
01:24:51.000 To young kids that are thinking about fighting when a young girl meets you, like, oh my god, it's the karate hottie.
01:24:58.000 Is it weird to you?
01:24:59.000 What is that feeling like to you when you meet a young girl and you say, oh my god, this is me when I was 16?
01:25:04.000 Yeah, it's amazing.
01:25:06.000 It really is to know that just through my story that I've touched people's lives.
01:25:12.000 I get approached a lot by parents that are happy that I'm pursuing what I'm pursuing, even being a mom.
01:25:24.000 So, I think that's really cool just because I feel like when I was pregnant, How old's your daughter now?
01:25:36.000 She's eight.
01:25:38.000 I thought she was much younger for some reason.
01:25:41.000 I know, she's a shrimp, that's why. 1.00
01:25:42.000 I saw the pictures when she was younger too.
01:25:44.000 Yeah, she's itty bitty. 1.00
01:25:47.000 This might be too much information, but after I had my daughter, she spent every single one of my fights. 1.00
01:25:55.000 And I had my first fight back when I was 10 months old and I was still breastfeeding.
01:26:00.000 I like breastfed her. 1.00
01:26:02.000 When she was 10 months old, not when you were 10 months old.
01:26:04.000 Yes, sorry.
01:26:04.000 When she was 10 months old.
01:26:06.000 Wow, you had a fight while you were breastfeeding?
01:26:08.000 Yeah.
01:26:09.000 That was your first fight?
01:26:10.000 My first fight back.
01:26:11.000 Oh, okay.
01:26:12.000 How many fights did you have before your daughter? 0.97
01:26:15.000 I had a good amount, I'd say.
01:26:17.000 I don't even know.
01:26:18.000 Has you been fighting for 10 years professionally?
01:26:20.000 12 years.
01:26:20.000 12 years?
01:26:20.000 Mm-hmm.
01:26:22.000 Yeah, a good amount.
01:26:24.000 I was 25 when I was pregnant.
01:26:28.000 But yeah, I just remember being pregnant and being...
01:26:31.000 Everybody talks about postpartum depression, but I was really depressed during my pregnancy.
01:26:37.000 I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved being pregnant and there was a lot of memories that I had with her being in my belly and me feeling her and all of this.
01:26:47.000 Those moments I treasure forever, but...
01:26:50.000 I was depressed.
01:26:51.000 I couldn't do what I wanted to do.
01:26:53.000 It's not like I could go out. 0.84
01:26:55.000 If I was feeling bad, I couldn't just throw the gloves on and go out and spar and hit somebody in the face.
01:27:01.000 You know, normal things.
01:27:03.000 That's what you do to relieve stress.
01:27:06.000 And I just, I watched everybody get better.
01:27:10.000 And I watched everybody progress and fight.
01:27:13.000 And it, you know, it ate me alive.
01:27:16.000 And I just, there was just so much uncertainty and so much unknown.
01:27:19.000 Was my body going to be the same?
01:27:21.000 You know, was I going to even want it?
01:27:23.000 Was I going to have time to do it?
01:27:25.000 There was just so much that I didn't know.
01:27:28.000 And so I was really down then and I get a lot of moms that approach me and they tell me that because I went back and continued to pursue my dream that they did too.
01:27:41.000 And I think that that's cool.
01:27:45.000 That is cool.
01:27:46.000 Now, when you say you had your first fight back 10 months, that's a really, for people that don't recognize, that's a very short amount of time to rebound from giving birth and then get yourself back in shape and then get yourself into fighting shape where you're like, I'm ready to take a fight and then train for the fight.
01:28:04.000 I mean, that is an incredible process to go through in 10 months.
01:28:07.000 It was crazy.
01:28:08.000 It really was.
01:28:09.000 My body was...
01:28:10.000 When you have a baby, your bones kind of like drift apart from each other and you gain weight.
01:28:19.000 After I had my daughter, I found out...
01:28:21.000 Well, during my pregnancy, I got gestational diabetes and I gained like 50 pounds.
01:28:27.000 I gained a lot.
01:28:29.000 I looked like the blueberry on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
01:28:34.000 Yeah.
01:28:38.000 But, yeah.
01:28:39.000 How long did it take you to bounce back?
01:28:42.000 Were you in the gym again?
01:28:43.000 I probably stayed with my daughter for the first three months that I had her, and I just wanted to be a mom.
01:28:50.000 I just wanted to be with her, and I wanted to nurture her and, you know, enjoy my time with her.
01:28:56.000 And I think it was after three months where I was like, I want to... 0.99
01:29:01.000 Kick somebody in the head. 1.00
01:29:02.000 Kick some butt. 1.00
01:29:02.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:29:03.000 I want to relieve some stress.
01:29:06.000 And Coach Wink and Coach Jackson and all my teammates were so supportive.
01:29:11.000 And so I would come into the gym and I'd have my diaper bag in one hand and my gym bag in the other and my car seat.
01:29:24.000 Wow.
01:29:25.000 Wow.
01:29:26.000 Wow.
01:29:38.000 And we made it work.
01:29:40.000 So I started training for that and I really couldn't run to lose the weight because my joints and my bones were all spread apart.
01:29:50.000 So when you say spread apart, what actually does happen?
01:29:53.000 I don't know all the science behind it, but they just say that in order to have the baby, everything kind of separates from each other.
01:30:02.000 Your bones loosen and you're more agile and loose and stuff like that.
01:30:09.000 You felt it?
01:30:10.000 I felt it.
01:30:10.000 You felt a big difference in the way your body performed?
01:30:12.000 Yeah, for sure I felt it.
01:30:17.000 So instead of running, I would swim for my cardio.
01:30:21.000 And that helped me.
01:30:23.000 Because it wasn't hard on my joints or anything like that.
01:30:26.000 It kind of helped me get back into shape.
01:30:28.000 You kind of just go with the flow and figure it out as you go.
01:30:33.000 It was really hard.
01:30:34.000 I was worried that because I got back into sparring and this and that, that I would go dry.
01:30:42.000 Like my milk would go dry.
01:30:44.000 But I didn't.
01:30:45.000 My body just figured, okay, this is what you do.
01:30:49.000 And I still produce milk and everything.
01:30:52.000 And it was really sensitive at first to get hit.
01:30:55.000 And then I just got used to the pain.
01:30:58.000 Ow! 1.00
01:31:00.000 I don't even have one of those.
01:31:02.000 I'm like, yikes.
01:31:03.000 Yeah, I would imagine.
01:31:05.000 Yeah, I mean, if you're...
01:31:08.000 Memories, you know, they pump up.
01:31:11.000 Yeah.
01:31:12.000 The body is just so amazing, though.
01:31:14.000 Like, it'll adapt to what it needs to adapt to.
01:31:17.000 And when I trained, I got used to the pain, and then it didn't hurt anymore.
01:31:23.000 And then, you know, I would only produce as much as she needed. 0.98
01:31:28.000 It was really cool.
01:31:29.000 Yeah.
01:31:29.000 Now, when you fought 10 months, it's pretty incredible for your daughter to have only seen you fighting.
01:31:35.000 Yeah.
01:31:36.000 That's gotta be crazy too, right?
01:31:38.000 Yeah.
01:31:38.000 You can't remember when you weren't fighting.
01:31:40.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:31:40.000 My mom kicks ass. 1.00
01:31:42.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:31:42.000 She has a really cool upbringing, I think. 1.00
01:31:47.000 She's surrounded by really cool people.
01:31:52.000 She gets to meet the coolest people in the world, and they're normal to her.
01:31:56.000 She sees John and Holly, and that's Auntie Holly to her.
01:32:02.000 Her expectations for what she can be in life, I think, are way higher.
01:32:08.000 And I think because she's surrounded by people like that, and that's why I like to keep her around because, you know, my dad used to always tell me that...
01:32:22.000 We learn through our actions, our parents' actions.
01:32:25.000 You walk the walk, you don't talk the talk.
01:32:28.000 So I think the best teacher can be my actions.
01:32:33.000 And for her to see it through her own eyes, I can tell her this, this, and this all day.
01:32:38.000 But it's a different story when she comes to a fight with me and I'm the champion, the 105 champion, and I'm defending my belt.
01:32:47.000 And I bust my eye open to the point where you can't see it anymore and I lose my belt.
01:32:53.000 And for her to see that...
01:32:55.000 And for her to see that mommy's okay and that failure is a part of life and that I still love what I do and I'm going to still go after my set of dreams because failure is a part of your journey.
01:33:10.000 That's an amazing lesson for a kid to learn.
01:33:12.000 And to see that at a high level growing up with her mother on this giant stage in front of all these people in the crowd and television, that's amazing for her.
01:33:22.000 Yeah, and because people ask me all the time, like, aren't you afraid that she's going to see you get hurt and this and that?
01:33:28.000 But why would you want to shield them from that stuff?
01:33:32.000 I know it's hard.
01:33:33.000 It's a hard pill to swallow.
01:33:35.000 You don't want your children to see you hurt and this and that.
01:33:37.000 But I'd rather her see it and be prepared for it, you know, because life isn't fair.
01:33:43.000 Life isn't sunshine and rainbows all the time.
01:33:46.000 Yeah, it's challenging for her and challenging things for kids.
01:33:49.000 That's how they grow.
01:33:52.000 Do you have, when you think about your career, do you have a timeline where you don't want to fight anymore?
01:34:01.000 How old are you now?
01:34:02.000 I'd like to fight for the belt this year.
01:34:04.000 This year?
01:34:04.000 Yeah.
01:34:05.000 You're 33. So you're in your prime.
01:34:09.000 Right now, an athlete's prime is like 30 to 35, 36. Yeah.
01:34:14.000 You're in that zone...
01:34:15.000 I'm in the zone.
01:34:16.000 I'm confident.
01:34:17.000 I feel ready.
01:34:18.000 I feel like I've gone through my ups and downs.
01:34:20.000 I've gone through all the steps that are necessary for me to be confident, to be a contender.
01:34:28.000 Do you have a timeline when you want to stop?
01:34:30.000 I would give myself...
01:34:33.000 It just really depends on how my career goes, but I would say three to four more years.
01:34:41.000 So you're just in the zone.
01:34:43.000 Right now you're just concentrating on getting things done, fighting for a title.
01:34:47.000 You're not thinking about planning the future up.
01:34:51.000 I would like more children.
01:34:54.000 I know my husband doesn't care for me.
01:34:56.000 My daughter doesn't even care for me to have more children. 1.00
01:34:59.000 She'd rather just be the three of us, you know.
01:35:01.000 But I would like more children.
01:35:04.000 And I have taken steps to figure out what I'm going to do when I retire as a fighter.
01:35:12.000 But...
01:35:14.000 I feel like this story needs to...
01:35:18.000 I need to finish out this story for my own sake and for, you know, millions of other parents out there that, you know, have a dream and don't give up on their dream just because they have children.
01:35:31.000 It's a longer road, but it's worth it.
01:35:34.000 Yeah, I hear you.
01:35:36.000 Now, when you look at the division, it's an incredible division now.
01:35:40.000 It's so talent stacked.
01:35:41.000 We don't know what's going to happen with Rose.
01:35:44.000 She's even said she might retire.
01:35:46.000 Yeah.
01:35:46.000 And she's a very eccentric person.
01:35:49.000 I mean, she's not motivated by money.
01:35:52.000 Not at all.
01:35:53.000 Very, very unusual.
01:35:54.000 Yeah.
01:35:54.000 And I love how honest she is about her emotions.
01:35:58.000 Yeah, I do as well.
01:35:59.000 She's very vulnerable.
01:36:01.000 She's very strong.
01:36:01.000 I mean, in terms of her ability to broadcast that and tell everybody and project it.
01:36:08.000 So I felt like she was winning that fight.
01:36:11.000 For sure.
01:36:13.000 100%.
01:36:13.000 Yeah.
01:36:13.000 She got caught with one of the craziest slam KOs we've ever seen.
01:36:17.000 I mean, you've got to go back to Carlos Newton, Matt Hughes, to have a slam KO like that.
01:36:22.000 Yeah.
01:36:23.000 I'm trying to remember.
01:36:24.000 It's one of the best slam KOs of all time.
01:36:27.000 Maybe Tito Ortiz, Evan Tanner.
01:36:29.000 That was another one.
01:36:30.000 I mean, slam KOs are rare.
01:36:32.000 And I love that it came from the smallest division in the UFC. Right.
01:36:36.000 I think that is just amazing.
01:36:38.000 I'm just so proud of the starweight division, if I can say so.
01:36:41.000 But I do.
01:36:42.000 I think it's stacked.
01:36:43.000 I feel like for my...
01:36:47.000 Any fight that I have from here on out is championship caliber fight, in my opinion.
01:36:52.000 And that's why I want to fight for the belt.
01:36:54.000 I want to go for the belt so that it's legit.
01:36:58.000 We're fighting for the belt.
01:37:00.000 And after that, it's a championship fight.
01:37:03.000 Every time.
01:37:04.000 Yeah.
01:37:05.000 When you're looking at that division, you have those two, Jessica Andrade, and we don't, again, we do not know where Rose's head is at, what she wants to do, but if she wanted to have a rematch, they probably would set that up. 0.99
01:37:18.000 Then you have Ioana, you have Tatiana Suarez, who's a beast. 1.00
01:37:23.000 You have you, you have, who else in the division stands out to you?
01:37:27.000 Well, Nina.
01:37:28.000 Sure.
01:37:29.000 Tatiana has to get through Nina first.
01:37:30.000 Sure.
01:37:30.000 And she's kind of just riding under the radar.
01:37:32.000 Nina Ansaroff, she's badass. 1.00
01:37:34.000 And maybe it's because, and that's a problem that I've had too, is that I'm not as vocal.
01:37:39.000 She just goes in there and does her thing. 0.99
01:37:41.000 And I think that a lot of people are overlooking her as well.
01:37:46.000 Sure.
01:37:47.000 And that's why I'm speaking out now.
01:37:50.000 This is what I want.
01:37:51.000 Mm-hmm.
01:37:53.000 Josh always jokes, he says, you get 100% of what you don't ask for.
01:37:57.000 So I'm asking for it.
01:37:59.000 It's what I want.
01:38:00.000 But yeah, there's Wade Lee.
01:38:04.000 I know that they're trying to pump her, and she's really good coming out of China.
01:38:08.000 And then, obviously, Tisha, Claudia... 1.00
01:38:14.000 And even the girls outside of the top ten are dangerous. 1.00
01:38:19.000 It's a stacked division, and it can go...
01:38:23.000 It's probably the most talented division in the women's MMA. I would say so, for sure. 1.00
01:38:27.000 Technically, and heart-driven, I would say.
01:38:31.000 For sure.
01:38:33.000 Now, what have they said in terms of what your future holds?
01:38:37.000 Do they have anything lined up for you?
01:38:40.000 When do they say...
01:38:41.000 If they're going to come to you and say, Hey...
01:38:43.000 Michelle we'd like you to fight in July or August or September like when would they come to you?
01:38:49.000 I just feel like With the way that the rankings are working, if I just take a fight outside of who is the current champ, I'm going to be in the same spot.
01:39:04.000 I've won my last two fights and I've gone down in rankings.
01:39:09.000 I really would like to hold off to fight the champion.
01:39:13.000 Because I feel like any other fight is going to either take me down or keep me in the same spot.
01:39:21.000 So, I don't know what they're planning on doing with Tatiana and Nina, but if they're trying to give them a shot before me, I feel like I want the winner of that and let me and them hash it out to fight for the belt.
01:39:35.000 So that would be what you would do as a second choice.
01:39:39.000 First choice is you want to fight for the belt.
01:39:41.000 Absolutely.
01:39:41.000 Second choice is whoever's going to fight for the belt, let me fight her.
01:39:43.000 Let me fight them first because Tatiana's only had seven fights, nothing against her. 0.67
01:39:47.000 She's played her case.
01:39:50.000 I have three times as many fights as she does.
01:39:53.000 I've fought for a belt before.
01:39:54.000 I've been a champion before.
01:39:55.000 I've gone five rounds before.
01:39:57.000 I've fought main event before.
01:39:59.000 I've worked my way back up.
01:40:01.000 Give me a shot.
01:40:02.000 Let me be mom champ.
01:40:06.000 Yeah, you gotta get there before somebody else does, right?
01:40:08.000 That's what I'm saying!
01:40:09.000 Because the only other person in that...
01:40:11.000 Well, Kat Zingano.
01:40:13.000 I don't know how her eyeball's doing right now.
01:40:15.000 I know.
01:40:16.000 That was a crazy situation.
01:40:18.000 To have all those fights in UFC and never have someone get toed in the eye like that before.
01:40:22.000 It's crazy.
01:40:23.000 And obviously you know that's how Winklejohn lost his vision.
01:40:25.000 Yeah, it's scary.
01:40:27.000 It is really scary to think that this is what we do and that there are so many dangers.
01:40:33.000 Yeah.
01:40:34.000 I mean, you're in a wild business, lady.
01:40:36.000 Yeah.
01:40:37.000 But, I mean, I wouldn't train it for the world.
01:40:41.000 This is what I love doing.
01:40:43.000 Well, that's awesome.
01:40:45.000 Then you're in the right spot.
01:40:47.000 Well, obviously, you're ranked number seven in the world.
01:40:50.000 It's got to be frustrating, though, that you have gone down in rankings, even though you haven't lost.
01:40:55.000 Absolutely, 100%.
01:40:56.000 And I don't know why they would argue for me not to get the belt to go for it.
01:41:05.000 Everything's there.
01:41:06.000 The storyline is there.
01:41:08.000 It would be technique versus strength, speed versus power.
01:41:14.000 This is you and Jessica.
01:41:15.000 Yeah.
01:41:16.000 And like I said, there were millions of people rallying behind me because they want to see me get that belt and I do too.
01:41:26.000 I'd love for my daughter to see that dream of mine come true and for her to come in the octagon with me and be holding that belt. 1.00
01:41:36.000 I think it would be an amazing moment.
01:41:38.000 Yeah, it's crazy watching kids see their parents win titles and how amazing it is to them.
01:41:45.000 It's a very strange thing to see, like that, oh my god, you know, my mom is the champ of the world or my dad's the champ.
01:41:51.000 We've never seen it, obviously, from a woman, but that my dad's the champ of the world.
01:41:56.000 Yeah.
01:41:56.000 It's a very powerful thing.
01:41:58.000 Yeah.
01:42:00.000 So you're in a holding pattern right now, essentially.
01:42:03.000 Yep.
01:42:03.000 That's what we're doing right now.
01:42:04.000 When was your last fight?
01:42:06.000 Was it April?
01:42:07.000 March or April?
01:42:08.000 March or April.
01:42:09.000 Yeah, we're just working.
01:42:10.000 We're getting better.
01:42:11.000 That's almost a year.
01:42:12.000 No, this April.
01:42:14.000 This April.
01:42:14.000 April.
01:42:14.000 What am I talking about?
01:42:15.000 Yeah.
01:42:16.000 I fought Karolina Kovalkevich.
01:42:19.000 That's right.
01:42:20.000 Yeah.
01:42:21.000 And it was a great fight.
01:42:23.000 I wanted the finish, but you can't force those things.
01:42:27.000 So I'm just going to continue to do what I'm doing and continue to get better.
01:42:32.000 What did you think of her loss to Andrade?
01:42:35.000 That was crazy.
01:42:36.000 I feel like styles make fights and it was the perfect fight for Andraj to showcase her knockout power because KK is a pressure fighter and she instinctively will go forward and throw when she is in danger.
01:42:53.000 And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, you know?
01:42:59.000 And she throws hard, obviously. 1.00
01:43:01.000 She buckled Ioana a couple times.
01:43:05.000 She's dangerous. 1.00
01:43:06.000 She's very, very tough.
01:43:08.000 She won against Rose.
01:43:12.000 But yeah, I think styles make fights.
01:43:16.000 And that's what happened with her in that situation.
01:43:21.000 What do you think?
01:43:23.000 Andrade is unusually strong. 0.94
01:43:26.000 Freakish. 1.00
01:43:27.000 You see when she grabs ahold of people and then dumps them on their ass. 1.00
01:43:31.000 She's freakishly powerful. 1.00
01:43:32.000 To be able to hit that single and elevate Rose that way and drop her on her head, you think about how strong you have to be to do that.
01:43:42.000 It's beautiful.
01:43:43.000 It's beautiful to watch. 0.98
01:43:45.000 She's a beast. 1.00
01:43:46.000 Great technique as well, no doubt about it, but man, a lot of power.
01:43:49.000 That's her bread and butter, for sure. 1.00
01:43:50.000 A lot of horsepower.
01:43:51.000 That's her bread and butter, and I honestly gave it to Rose to win the fight. 0.96
01:43:57.000 It only takes a split second, though, to lose your focus and to get picked up and slammed down like that, and then the fight's over.
01:44:05.000 For the division, it's actually probably good, because it's exciting, because it mixes things up a bit.
01:44:09.000 You have Ioana, who was the dominant champion for so long.
01:44:12.000 Rose comes along and beats her, and then Jessica dumps Rose in her head and beats her in a fight that she was losing. 1.00
01:44:18.000 I mean, it's a hotbed of talent.
01:44:20.000 That 115-pound women's division is amazing right now. 1.00
01:44:23.000 It really is.
01:44:26.000 Yeah.
01:44:27.000 So that's what I'm wanting.
01:44:29.000 That's exactly what I want.
01:44:31.000 In the meantime, we just get better.
01:44:34.000 Beautiful.
01:44:35.000 We train and we get better.
01:44:36.000 I feel like what's going to beat Andrade is, I mean, Rose was doing exactly what she was doing.
01:44:44.000 I think that Rose actually kind of got a bit, just a little bit complacent. 0.96
01:44:51.000 She's even said it herself.
01:44:52.000 It was a moment of laziness.
01:44:55.000 A lapse, yeah.
01:44:57.000 Well, it's so hard after the fact to try to figure out what went wrong and why it went wrong, what was going on in her head, but clearly it was not lacing up the legs when she was attacking the Kimura.
01:45:06.000 She was elevated and dumped.
01:45:08.000 And I'm sure for a lot of her camp, she was able to do that with her teammates and probably pop off good submissions.
01:45:18.000 But in the moment of a fight for a championship belt in your hometown against a person that's bread and butter is a pile drive.
01:45:30.000 It just stacks up against you.
01:45:33.000 Well, good luck trying to find someone as strong as her, outside of maybe Valentina, who she does train with.
01:45:39.000 I mean, but Jessica Andrade is probably one of the strongest women in the 150-pound division. 1.00
01:45:44.000 She's so damn strong.
01:45:45.000 So good luck trying to find someone to replicate that in training.
01:45:48.000 Yeah, and you don't train that.
01:45:50.000 You don't train the pile driver.
01:45:53.000 Like, that's dangerous.
01:45:55.000 That's one of those things that you just...
01:45:57.000 I don't know.
01:45:59.000 She does train Valentina, though, who's one of the strongest women at 125. Valentina's a tank. 1.00
01:46:04.000 That's a very strong woman.
01:46:05.000 But her style is different, too.
01:46:07.000 She's a counterfighter, and she picks and chooses when she wants to go, and if she holds you down... 0.67
01:46:12.000 Super technical striker.
01:46:12.000 Yeah, like, her takedowns are not Andrade's takedowns.
01:46:16.000 Right.
01:46:17.000 You know?
01:46:17.000 So, I don't know.
01:46:19.000 We'll see.
01:46:20.000 It is one of the things that's so exciting about the sport is that there are so many different ways to approach it.
01:46:25.000 There's so many different ways.
01:46:26.000 There's your way, karate style.
01:46:28.000 There's Ioana's way, Muay Thai. 0.81
01:46:31.000 There's Jessica's way, bulldog, get a hold of you, take her down. 1.00
01:46:35.000 And in a lot of ways, Ioana also showed how to beat Jessica Andrade. 0.99
01:46:39.000 She showed how to beat her. 1.00
01:46:40.000 I feel the difference with Ioana and Rose is that Rose, because...
01:46:47.000 This is just my opinion, because Rose has shown to have more variety in her... 1.00
01:46:57.000 In her toolbox.
01:46:58.000 She's really good grappling and this and that.
01:47:01.000 I don't think she's as...
01:47:03.000 She's not as hesitant to go to the ground.
01:47:06.000 I feel like if the situation allowed it, she would go to the ground and even get a submission on Andrade.
01:47:13.000 Whereas with Ioana, she knows what she has to do to win and she'll be stubborn in that sense and do that for five minutes, for five rounds consistently. 0.99
01:47:24.000 You know what I mean?
01:47:25.000 And I feel like with Rose, she'll take risks.
01:47:31.000 And a lot of times it does work for her.
01:47:34.000 And sometimes it just doesn't.
01:47:37.000 Yeah, and that was just one of those times.
01:47:39.000 It's interesting to see her talk about fighting, period, that she doesn't know if she has that in her anymore.
01:47:46.000 Just to be mean to a person, to hurt a person.
01:47:48.000 I thought that was really interesting.
01:47:50.000 Yeah, I love how honest she is.
01:47:53.000 But I also feel like A big part of her getting the belt was to know that she could take down Ioana, the invincible.
01:48:03.000 And then she did that and it was like, alright, well, now I know that I can.
01:48:07.000 And it's kind of like, well, I've already accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.
01:48:12.000 I don't know, maybe that's just me thinking out loud of what maybe she might be going through, what might be going on in her mind.
01:48:18.000 Let's say if you fought Andrade and you beat her and you become the champion, would that take a significant amount of motivation away from you or would you have more motivation to defend it?
01:48:29.000 So we talk about this too because that's been such a huge goal of mine is to be the champ.
01:48:36.000 And I want to say two fights ago we started implementing...
01:48:44.000 Visualizations of me being the champ and defending the belt and how that would look like.
01:48:51.000 This is with your psychologist?
01:48:53.000 With my sports psychologist.
01:48:56.000 Yeah, so that makes the mountain higher.
01:49:02.000 It's not the end game once you get the belt.
01:49:05.000 Coach Jackson would say that all the time.
01:49:07.000 It's easy to become the champ.
01:49:08.000 It's harder to stay the champ.
01:49:10.000 It certainly is.
01:49:12.000 Well, listen, Michelle, you're very entertaining.
01:49:14.000 I love watching you fight.
01:49:16.000 I hope if you do get the chance to fight for the title, I'll be there to call it.
01:49:20.000 And thanks for doing this.
01:49:22.000 I really appreciate it.
01:49:22.000 Thank you so much for having me.
01:49:24.000 It's great for everybody to get a chance to get to know you.
01:49:25.000 Thank you.
01:49:26.000 Michelle Waterson, ladies and gentlemen.
01:49:29.000 Bye, everybody.