Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA0EwdW7svg
[Music] it's dope right yes it's i don't think that's technically an nft it's like a digital representation of the nft he gave me an nft too but you have to put that in like an nft wallet which i don't know yep yeah well what does that mean like what is an nft wallet looks like that's how you store it exactly but what does that mean i was right there with you and you were talking about like you have no idea what this stuff is and it's really complicated and everything it's it's weird that they're so valuable that's what's weird well and but i'm actually going to like try to start one you should yeah it seems like a scam that like people were willingly participating in so like okay but this guy beeple like he's an amazing artist he does art every day he puts a new piece of digital art out every day and he's done it for 12 years i saw it yeah and he's got a gallery that they're building of all these these kind of things like this elon thing of these giant digital artwork pieces it's so that's like he's a different thing some people are just making nfts of like a an image of them like at the park or something like that i'm trying to figure out like what i can give to like the super fans right so like i'm like do they want like an old like fight bra or something like do they do they want like tickets to the fight like what do these guys want like what do you mean they definitely want to fight bra yeah yeah so i think i was gonna like stick some of that stuff like some some weird stuff in there you know and like be like these are my old hand wraps do you guys want that like is this an nft is it handy that's very valuable jeremy stevens gave me his wraps and his shorts from one of his fights one of his victories and it's up in my studio in l.a oh nice i gotta bring that over here yeah so in the beginning like when i first met you uh today rather when i ran into you oh first thing i was saying i was like are you still on cloud nine like what is this like like you you you know it was matt sarah and gsp that was like the biggest upset ever in the history
sport right but this is like i think this is there or bigger it might be bigger yeah i mean i that wasn't my era i'm in the new generation this is my era so of course to me it's the biggest but it was huge because amanda was terrifying like everybody was scared of her and you were the one that wasn't scared of her yeah no you can't be you're fighting like i know but it's still it's like it's the way you did it yeah it was so wild like while it was that like dc dc are you laughing because you were counting me out the whole time no i'm laughing because dc sent me a text and in the video you're very very excited dc sent me a text and uh it was a video of me and him doing commentary in your fight he goes bro he goes listen to us we're just making weird noises because during the fight like oh he's screaming like a little girl it was wild yeah it was [ __ ] wild you know when you were standing toe-to-toe with her and smashing her with a jab in the middle of the octagon we were like gripping each other we were like oh [ __ ] oh [ __ ] it you can't describe what that's like to watch because it's like you can't it's hard to believe that it's happening i felt like if you had a chance to beat her it would be in a scramble you would catch her and submit her yeah grapple exchange wear her down and submit her yeah but to see you standing in the middle of octagon and smashing her with a jab it was like ah it was it was crazy it was so wild to see it was almost like the world changed yeah like the whole world changed like what is not possible is now possible yes well there's there's two things first is um there's styles we've already talked about that styles makes fights but i knew stylistically that i have the perfect uh style of fighting to beat her and because there's for example i'm not the type to run around the ring the whole time and do the point sparring thing and go to decision it's like one of us is coming out of here and that's it that's just the way that my fighting style is i'm the type where it's like if there's a
big puncher the only way to meet that is meet fire with fire and i have to stand in the pocket so i'm not the type of person to run away in the fight i'm the type of person to meet that fire head on right and match it with my own fire and i knew that that was how i was going to win and so that's pretty much all i did is just game plan that specific type of you're going to be in the pocket you're going to have to meet this fire and you absolutely cannot shy away from it well you said it leading up to the fight that you're going to drown her yeah i mean i've been calling for this fight for five years everyone's like this girl's talking all this crap you know she's this and she's that and getting upset at me like but i've been calling for this fight since i won uh katzengano at ufc 200. she beat misha that night i beat cat cat had just recently beat her and in the press conference amanda's saying uh that i'm next and then rhonda got to cut the line and you know rhonda had just gotten knocked out by holly holm and instead of her you know having to fight somebody else she got an immediate title shot and she got to cut the line and i was like that was my fight she's the champ said that i was next and so rhonda came in she got knocked out and then i you know i got put to the back of the line again but i was constantly saying even when rhonda was champ and i won the ultimate fighter i kept saying i want to fight ronda i want to fight rhonda and they wouldn't they wouldn't give me that fight but the fact that she knocked out rhonda helped your fight it really did when you finally got her yeah because she's a legend by then true because before then she was super dangerous everybody was very aware that amanda was like super [ __ ] dangerous yeah and a vicious knockout artist but beaning rhonda the way she did put her on the world map right when she knocked her out in 48 seconds everybody's like holy [ __ ] right you know and your your fight with her was bigger because of all the delays like it because she achieved this goat status six years i think yeah she's been unbeaten just knocking knocking people out for like the last six years
so the fact that she knocked out cyborg like that too incredible right and then you just stood right in the [ __ ] pocket yeah i know and that's great is if i can get people emotionally invested in me whether it's in my successes or in my losses whatever it is as long as you're watching and as long as you're you know gripping your seat at the end of your seat and freaking out i want to invoke that emotion in people and that's why i love fighting i think is because you know whether you're invested in the loss or the success you're you're watching and you're like feeling some type of way and your heart's you know going through your throat and and to get that reaction from people and to see the you know um outpour of people reaching out to me and how i made them feel it was like it almost made me feel guilty in a sense i'm like really yeah my dad lost 15 pounds like this guy's throwing up you know people are like putting you know this guy's like putting um you know pissed off that they lost all this money you know and then there's people that are like super happy but like the emotions of like people close to me is seeing how much i put them through i'm like i'm sorry i did that to you guys you know like it makes me feel bad you know i'm like oh man i'm really putting these people through the ringer like i feel i feel guilty you know that's hilarious listen they're all invested now you know after that fight everybody's invested yeah that was one of the best fights i've ever seen thank you in terms of like like what do you want out of a fight you want to you you want to be completely immersed in the world goes away all you're thinking about is what's happening right in front of you and because of your effort because of what you accomplished that night you change the way people think about what's possible and not possible that's everything we want from a fight everything you're the underdog you came in you were counted out by so many people you fought the greatest of all time and you [ __ ] her up yeah and the way you did it like the whole world everybody that watched that was like holy [ __ ] the world is a different place now yeah it
just goes to show you how strong the mind is and how you know it's going to sound corny but my mom always used to tell me you can do anything you set your mind to and that's almost true it i mean it can't swim across the ocean no okay so it's almost true but i mean you got to be realistic obviously and people were upset about me like oh yeah you can't do this you can't do that set some realistic standards for yourself you know what i mean you know some old lady is not going to be obviously a world champion in the ufc but she could find something that she's passionate about she can pursue that with her whole heart and she can achieve whatever that goal is for whatever it is that she wants you know so you got to be realistic but if you're passionate about something how sad would it be for somebody to die with no passion you know to not be passionate about something that's a very common thing you know a lot of people never find the groove they never find a thing that excites them and then never realize that facing that fear and then challenging themselves actually feels good because you accomplish it you go you get through it and then on the other end of it you feel better that's something that people that everyone wants to seek comfort and comfort's a terrible place to be it's horrible it's only good after you've already worked really hard and you deserve a little break that's what comfort's for comfort's for like these small moments when you're not grinding right and and i think that that's um probably the thing that's been hardest in my life is having to choose the easy route or go the tough route and just me by personality i'm always going to choose the harder road it's almost like i know that i could go the easy route but that's just not in me that's not who i am as personality it's like if everyone's going this way i have to go the other way when you had that catastrophic knee injury i mean that was that was such an enormous setback but how dark were those days like how hard was that for you it was uh very depressing talk about wanting to hide under a rock and and
never come out how did it happen what would it explain the actual extent of the injury for people who don't know i can tell you that i was in that moment very angry at the time i was angry at my uh the relationship that i was in at the time and i went to the gym angry and ready to like mess something up and the training partner that i was with couldn't take me down and we were fighting for real and uh and so at one point he was just hugging on my neck trying to take me down in desperation and we ended up being like shoulder to shoulder and he's like pulling me from the neck this way trying to pull me down and my leg got stuck in the mat and it just completely caved and sideways sideways sideways yeah i tore four out of five ligaments and when i uh went to step down on the mat my whole knee just like was came out from underneath me it was like one of those disgusting things like just flopping all over the place so you know i made a mistake because on the way you know i had just won the ultimate fighter and i was getting ready to to go to my next fight and i was getting ready to fight jessica andraj actually and when my my first reaction was i'm out of the fight and so i was on the way to the hospital i was on my way to you know go but i was screaming bloody murder freaking out and my coach is like called call dana tell him that you're out of the fight and so i called dana as i'm on my way to the hospital crying telling him about my knee and that was the biggest mistake ever because he literally blew it up and was like she got mauled by a bear her training partners are jealous or trying to kill her you know what i mean yeah he told me leave that gym now like he made it a really big deal and and it just brought so much negative attention to my gym oh that's unfortunate it was unfortunate it was well dana cares but yeah i think sometimes when you care you get a little crazy yeah well it just it it ended up making him hate my coach and i mean this is still the coach that i'm with for for the last 13 years you know so wow that sucks it does train injuries
are just they're just a thing yeah you know i mean some of them you can avoid but you can't avoid personalities you can't avoid people struggling you can't avoid like you zig when you should have zagged right well and again it was just my fault completely because i should have waited i should have not gone into the gym in that moment and and trained you know no one was watching it was just us it was like no supervision no like you know direction it was just like we're fighting like let's go you know it was almost like a bad karma type of thing i was like no no no don't act like that so was it because you think you you've trained the way you did because you're in a bad head space yeah i was i had just recently saw something with my eyes that i perceived you know girls are weird you know they overthink everything so i saw something and i was like oh no and then i went to the gym and angry angry angry like just seething seething angry it's so hard to just take that anger and and put it aside and just think rationally when you're training you see guys like spar angry and then drop their hands and and swing wild and it's like god the worst things happen when you do that well and um i think that for some reason my coach has it in my mind or even other people's mind not so much my mind but he'll tell other people that like she fights better when she's mad like she actually fights better when she has chaos in her life it's almost like the tonya harding type of situation where it's like i'm not at my best unless i'm getting mentally beaten down but i don't think that i think that's just his excuse because he's always created of so much chaos in my life and that's like what he wants to say you know we'll get in a fight and i'll go choke the girl out you know right away in the first round so i think that's what he thinks but i don't think that way that's well you need to be invested in the fight but to be that worked up i mean it's not it's weird it's like so many fighters have had some of their best performances while their lives seen chaos like tyson when he was in his prime like his life was full chaos he
had syphilis when he knocked out michael spinks yeah is that what he had her gonorrhea i think he had gonorrhea i which one's the clap gonorrhea right yeah i don't know he was he he knocked him out when he was walking with an scs he had an scd and he destroyed the former heavyweight champion in one of the most spectacular knockouts the heavyweight division's ever seen yeah and the guy had an std yeah by the way i love mike tyson i'm sponsored by tyson 2.0 oh are you really what is tyson 2.0 it's uh his new um cannabis line oh you're sponsored by weed yeah i'm going i'm going the apparel route with tyson 2.0 you know but uh yeah they just came on as my newest endorser nice yes no i love mike i'm a giant fan i just think that you know when he was in his prime i mean he was destroying everybody and his life was just full-on chaos yeah yeah and i could make a case for that i could go back and be like oh yes i was you know in a really tough mental spot there too and i mean i could argue that for even this fight um but i don't want to because i feel like at the end of the day those are all excuses and you got to be able to perform and that's the bottom line yeah and as a professional especially now as a professional and a world champion like you're in this state like you really have to like make sure everything is aligned properly your mind your rest your recovery the whole deal yeah what is next do you think a rematch is next absolutely yeah there's still naysayers out there there's still people that think it was a fluke there's still people that are harassing me there's still people that are like being like she's gonna kill you you know they're like 10 seconds in your debt you know and so i i just i would love nothing more than to to put the naysayers to bed for one last time oh yeah yeah now have you guys started discussing when and if that can happen yes um and you know in my mind in a perfect world july 4th yeah yes um in my mind uh i would always want i've always wanted to anyway since i was on the ultimate fighter i would love to
coach the ultimate fighter i just you know the last time that we were supposed to coach before this fight she she decided not to do it and and so i'm just trying to coax her into doing it you know like come on let's coach the ultimate fighter and then we'll fight in july it'll be perfect that would be great yeah so that in a perfect world that's how it would be for me but i would anticipate sometime in the summer for the rematch the ultimate fighter what kind of a commitment is that it's like a six-week commitment yes something like that i it's it is like a six-week commitment so you just live in vegas for six weeks bring your kid yep training there and then coach people yeah now um that has always like traditionally been a way that people have been able to like get rivalries really cooking because when you're next to each other all the time for six weeks it just bubbles up yeah what do you think that's gonna be like being around her for six weeks you know it's not a personal thing it's not like i have anything against her personally i think that she's great you know um and if i were to be on the show i can pretty much guarantee you i'm not going to be pulling any shenanigans if she pulled the shenanigans then it's on you know what i mean but like i'm not out to you know be vicious or malicious or anything like that um but again like i said like if i get pushed in that direction that's a different story but yeah it's i've seen pat like i think the conor mcgregor one where he was like poking at uriah is just hilarious epic like well how about when ronda was on with misha beat her in a competition just to the fingers like so angry oh yeah and i was right there next to her when they were at the red rock and misha's like she's like you can't even throw punches and ron is like she stormed off so angry she went and got edmond and they came back and like i thought they were going to throw down right then and there literally like it was it was awkward well you get to see sides of people's personality when you had to see them on these exchanges with each other right remember rashad evans and rampage yes and like you're a [ __ ] treat me like a [ __ ] you're a [ __ ]
treat me like a [ __ ] like like face to face with each other for like several seconds yes saying that yeah or even like van der ley and and she'll sign oh that's a classic yeah they straight up spot yeah that's a classic i i i would hope you know that that wouldn't be the case you know like let's be adults about this but then that's the flip side it's like we're trying to sell the fight right we're trying to make people invested and make sure that they watch the fight so it's like how can it be you know this epic season of the ultimate fighter without that kind of chaos but it's like amanda's not that kind of person and i'm not either yeah i don't think it has to be that way like the fight is gonna be giant no matter what right when you guys have a rematch holy [ __ ] god it better be in north america yeah i don't want to miss that one no i would i would hope not [ __ ] yeah it's absolutely going to be in north america it has to be dana white don't ship that [ __ ] to abu dhabi no heck no that has to be in america because that one's that one's just too big it's too big they locked us down in abu dhabi i went out there twice and i was like i'm in abu dhabi i'm like in the i want to go buy some gold and they're like hotel room that's it sorry sweetheart i'm just like ugh you think that's different now though it seems like everything's kind of lightening up now and you already have had kovitz you got the antibodies and everything yeah no i i mean i to me i don't put on a mask unless somebody like asks me and then i'm like that's over like come on cnn has said that they don't work cnn on cnn they said cloth masks don't work so unless you have like a [ __ ] respirator or what are those things called not a respirator were those n95s what do they technically refer to them as like it's a specific kind of mask i thought it wasn't n95 yeah but these when they seal up to your face they kind of they call them a specific type of mask gas mask i don't know this is ridiculous like i'm sick of this i'm seriously so sick of it when did you get covered i got it uh in november of 2020. oh you're an early adopter yeah november 22 how was it
fine i mean i had uh the chills one night it started with the headache and i had a massive headache for two days i couldn't understand what was going on um and then was this in a camp were you during camp it was right after i lost to germain durandman in october of 2020 and um i had the chills day three um it was like freezing i had like sweatpants on uh everything and like three blankets and i was still like shivering cold uh i think the day four or five i lost taste and smell and i had a very mild cough and then it was it was gone i quarantined 14 days and i was fine did you get your sense of smell and taste bad quick i have a friend who still has no sense of taste and no sense of smell for a year and a half yeah same with one of my really good girlfriends jennifer mercier she still doesn't have her taste and smell apparently according to andrew huberman he's this brilliant guy from stanford who's been on my podcast before he has his own podcast he's an expert in health and wellness and he says that alpha lipoic acid is really good for that another thing that is really good that uh this is anecdotal evidence but people that i know that have dried is nad drips so they get uh vitamin iv drips and then they get an nad yeah which is um i don't know how to say it well like nicotine aluma you you took like the mono colonel yeah uh and and then they just stripped those like two days ago right i wish i wish this made sense i wish it made sense because i have a friend in la that just took the monoclonal antibodies a few days ago and she got better and she was really scared yeah she was and she's vaxxed and boosted and she got real sick and she took the monoclonal antibodies and she was back like that instantaneously and they try to not give them to her in the hospital because um she's too healthy they won't right like i don't know i listened to the podcast with uh the two doctors like back to back not one one robert and yeah peter mccullough yes yes and i mean that was eye-opening for me yeah i'm a massive conspiracy theorist on this whole thing and i have been since the very beginning i'm like this is just a money grab this is they're trying to
kill us you know and this is ridiculous i don't know i don't think they're trying to kill us i think there's a lot of confusion as far as what works and what doesn't work and then there's a lot well remember peter mccullough said that there's like a specific plant that's growing somewhere and then one day like they were all burned gone he said that there was like a field of like this medicine like somewhere else and then when they went to go back for it it was like all burned down do you remember this what was he talking about so is that if it was in the amazon the problem with that is no i'm trying to remember too it just anyways they're in agriculture in places and they don't take any consideration as to like what like that's an issue with the stripping of the amazon is that there's a lot of plants in the amazon that could conceivably lead to amazing uh pharmaceutical medications yeah a lot of the pharmaceutical drugs that we take that are really helpful they find them in the amazon it's pretty crazy yeah so when they do stuff like that it might not be a conspiracy to kill people it might just be slash and burn agriculture that they're doing for livestock like what they do in brazil in particular and in some places is they'll slash and cut down giant chunks of the forest in the the rain forest and then they use it just for grazing land for cattle yeah but in doing so you know you're destroying this ecosystem yeah well i mean at this point i don't even think it's a conspiracy anymore with all the other stuff that's happening it's just like no this is reality well reality is there's a lot of people scared and there's a lot of confusion and there's also a lot of people that don't want people discussing things they only want one narrative right and that's where you know it becomes a problem for me it's because science is supposed to be debated between experts and oftentimes people who are highly credentialed who are experts in their field disagree vehemently about the exact same subject with the exact same facts at hand
and so the the way they sort that out is through peer review through discussions like in when and they have litigations right when they have lawsuits yeah you'll often have an expert witness that is for the defense and an expert witness for the prosecution and both of them are experts like legitimate educated experts and they differ completely now whether or not they're being honest or whether or not they're being paid to give an expert opinion that follows a certain narrative because this is what their client wants i don't know but i do know that science is supposed to be sorted out through discussion of evidence and when you suppress the discussion of evidence and you suppress people utilizing things that are 100 percent healthy safe to use off-label medications you've got a real problem in your hand and that's what a lot of doctors think now that's a lot of people think now and that's why this whole thing is so confusing and also people are dying you know like you got over it easy i got over it pretty easy but i have the right medication and yeah you know and we're both fit we work out a lot and that that's a big factor yeah this is the thing that's been driving me crazy about all this is how little emphasis they've put on getting people to change their lifestyle right make better lifestyle choices right you know that's that's [ __ ] crazy when you find out how many people that wind up in the hospital that are overweight right how many people that wind up you know like with real problems because they have vitamin d deficiencies right like all these kind of these these things can be fixed yeah we're living in a time where you absolutely have to be supplementing yeah you have to be supplementing you know it's just bottom line if you're not supplementing then you're obviously gonna you know your your immune system is weak by nature so you have to supplement to get what you need well you're telling me that you gave me a box of the supplements from this company that you use what's it called again it's called designs for sport and you've been you used those before they were sponsor yours yes i did yes uh it's all nsf certified so if you you know soda comes
knocking on your door you're not gonna piss hot or anything like that this is legit stuff i was taking it before they sponsored me um and now it's just awesome that they are sponsoring me um and they have vitamins they have protein yes everything everything collagen they have uh you know um there's a thing that not a lot of fighters know i don't feel like for brain injury like um it's called gpc liquid and like if you get knocked out all the time you should be taking this um you're getting knocked out all the time yeah i've never been knocked out but i'm just saying like it's it's great to for brain cushion and then cpc liquid gpc liquid do you know what gpc stands for no i wish i did i'm sorry you know what's crazy is that like i'm sponsored by them and i know their stuff is legit but i just take it you know what i mean you're busy yeah i'm busy like i just yeah i just know that i need to be taking this stuff all the stuff that it does i don't know i know i drink the hydration complex and the amino acids you know during and after practice and stuff i know that i drink the collagen and the beef protein and make a little mocha in the morning with my coffee like i i take it because i know that i need it and that it's good for you and i need to be supplementing but like what the ins and outs of everything is like you're gonna have to do more listen it's hard enough to be a mom of a four-year-old yes be a mom of a four-year-old while you're a professional fighter yeah at the highest levels of the game right come on you're busy yeah get yourself some slack yeah so i don't know what everything does but i know that it's great and another thing that's great for uh the brain injury is uh psilocybin we sauna yeah i'm sponsored by uisana daniel carcillo he created this um he's a he well he was a nhl uh hockey player but he got his uh career cut short as an athlete because he had too much brain trauma from you know those guys are constantly smashing so um we saw it as a psilocybin company that sponsors and uh and there's a little bit how do they do that they microwave this but it's illegal so how do they do that i i have no idea stupid as [ __ ] that it's
illegal it drives me goddamn crazy that you could buy pills that are you know oxycontins are legal you can get those you can't get a subscription from a prescription for mushrooms the the conspiracy theory continues yeah medicine is just a big big money thing anyways you know well it is and it's also heals people and also this medicine heals yeah but there's a lot of medicine heals yeah there's a lot of pharmaceutical drugs that are very beneficial we're lucky that they exist yeah but whenever you have companies that are designed to make as much money as possible they start trying to figure out how to make money versus trying to figure out how to heal the most amount of people possible that's where things get weird but you're in oregon no i'm in chicago oh you are but i'm from washington state right but well i'm sorry washington state but washington state i meant enemy oregon washington pacific northwest didn't washington state um it was the first state to legalize marijuana yeah and i think they did something with mushrooms too recently right i think oregon morgan did with everything right right did why what other states have done something with psilocybin there's been a couple of states that have decriminalized psilocybin oregon essentially decriminalized everything right yeah well and here's the thing i'm not telling you to go trip out on mushrooms every day you know what i mean this is micro dosing it's specific like it's not like you know you're losing your gourd every day and high as a kite it's like you can actually function and talk if you have this brain injury that you've sustained if you have these issues then you take this and then you can come back to normal and have a conversation here it is seattle becomes largest u.s city to decriminalize psychedelics yeah so that's it so it's uh it's a bad rap though because people are like i gotta go chew these mushrooms it's like it's not like that it's like a pill that you would take like a vitamin right and for people who haven't microdosed i have it really you don't get high it's like a very very mild elevation of mood an
alleviation of anxiety yeah psilocybin services will be legalized in washington state under new bill so this is just three weeks ago okay so that's what i was referring to um so you were in tacoma right that's right spokane spokane spokane washington spokane is uh that's like towards the middle so uh so there's a mountain range that separates the state of washington seattle's on the coast and the ocean and then spokane's on the exact opposite side spokane's better weather right yeah yeah because that mountain range yeah it rains all the time in seattle and then it's like a really dry heat over in spokane that's better i'll take that that rain's for the birds yeah i know it's depressing they need the psilocybin over there because they're so depressed because it rains all the time yeah i remember when i was there one of my escape from la trips was uh seattle before the [ __ ] hit the fan with covid i was thinking of taking my family and moving to seattle yeah and we looked around there but i i had a buddy of mine who was a coach at 10th planet in portland and we we looked at portland too and he had moved up there from l.a and i go you don't miss california at all he goes no dude man it's [ __ ] amazing up here yeah and so i go well what about those the rain and all that [ __ ] he goes do you know what man you're getting used to it it's totally normal yeah i finally went hmm so i was thinking about that then a year later i'm training and he's back in l.a yeah like what are you doing man he goes [ __ ] that rain my sister lives on the opposite side say she lives in bellevue which is a few you know minutes from seattle and not minutes i mean it's like 20 minutes whatever traffic she lives over on the seattle side yeah and she had to get like a light like a specific light and like look into it every day because she's not getting the sun you know like she's like depressed and like has all this sadness is like because you there's no sun it's just rains all the time you know yeah you don't make like alice and chains and nirvana music if you live in a happy place yeah exactly it's just that kind of [ __ ] but beautiful stuff comes out of there oh yeah no the pacific northwest is one
of the most beautiful places so green yeah you know it's gorgeous remember the first time i went to portland i was like god the grass is like illuminated yeah it's like th that's so healthy yeah the grass is like ah like a bright vibrant green well and where we're from we have mountains all over the place you go snowboarding you go skiing and all that stuff it's awesome i moved to the midwest and they took me like two hours north to the dells in wisconsin and i was like where's the mountain they're like you're looking at it i'm like that's a hill where's the mountain you know it's like complete contrast why did you move there um i mean the short of it is i got knocked up i can't leave so [Laughter] but no the the truth is is uh you know i i had to go there the ufc sent me there one time for uh latino heritage month and i was like this city's legit i like drove into chicago downtown i saw the skyline it's like the most beautiful sky i've ever seen you know coming from spokane i was like this place is awesome and then it smelled like chocolate and pizza and i was like i never want to leave and then of course one of my favorites is like kanye west and i was like yeah i'm going to go to the shy and and then i like i was going back to train with luis claudio he's a hixson gracie black belt and so i went out there with him and i was training with him and then um i went back to spokane and i would come and stay with luis for a few months you know and do my camps and i was like if i ever move anywhere i would totally choose chicago and then i met baby daddy and then i packed my [ __ ] after knowing him for two weeks put it all into the truck and i was like i'm here after knowing him for two weeks isn't that crazy wow yeah yeah i love it yeah that was nuts well you're a professional fighter you take chances right yeah no risk no reward right i wouldn't have my beautiful baby yeah there you go yeah it worked out so i'm in chicago now but honestly it couldn't have been a better move career-wise because you know in spokane i'm top dog i'm you know a big fish in a small pond chicago is like welcome to the big
leagues jimmy training out there so so that's also the flip side right spokane one-stop shop go to the garage that's it yeah chicago i'm constantly in my car all day long i have like four different places that i got to go to train so it's not just one it's not just one spot it's like i get my boxing at gregory boxing and muay thai i get my mma like straight wrestling and mma at bfs valley flow striking i got my jiu jitsu with luis claudio at lcct in schaumburg and then i do my strength and conditioning trainer with alex spanos at the northwestern football uh facility schomburg is a hike because i used to do the improv out there absolutely it is it's actually with that traffic yeah and even evanston at the northwestern football team that campus is far away so i'm just constantly in my car all day long that's the benefit of a place like american top team yeah you know what dan lambert did down there by dumping a ton of money into that facility yeah i mean what an amazing opportunity if you've got a place where you can go where everything is under one room right god that's huge it is strength and conditioning muay thai and you only gotta pay one percent over there that's it that's it one percent yeah that's when you're a rich [ __ ] like dan is it that great though their greatest ever of all time just left you didn't see that no what are you talking about amanda she's gone she's she left she left american top teams what yeah she's done it was just like last week or two weeks ago not even yeah i didn't see that at all yeah she left what to go where i guess she's building her own team from scratch i guess i love dan lambert though i wish i wish we would one percent how could you leave and leave one percent that's how it sounds dan flew me down there when i won the ultimate fighter he put me up in a beautiful house on freaking south beach and gave me a car and was like have fun maybe talk to baby daddy and say take over that spot it's a total uh a free state over there i would love to move to florida if you moved into american top team after amanda left that'd be great and you trained there for the rematch with all the people that trained with her i bet dan likes me anyway better
anyways no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding i love dan lambrechter he's [ __ ] awesome no he comes to chicago you take me to the cubs game and buy me popcorn and buy me dinner and stuff like yeah i mean he flew me down there like i like i had a i felt bad because when she pulled out of the fight in august i saw him at the show and i was like what's up with your girl you know we kind of like got into it a little bit but it was it was business at that point but i got nothing but love for dan lane but i think he's a cool guy what he did was he set a precedent i mean they tried to do that with the black zillions but you know the guy he died right didn't the kind it was like i don't know black saline's got i think the head guy died i don't know but like they tried to do that in some other places but no one's done it like dan has yeah the amount of money i mean he built a giant ass [ __ ] building state-of-the-art facility um top of the food chain i think there's another one there what is it called sanford mma yes i feel like a lot of the people that were at american top team are now at sanford well sanford you got a henry houft who's phenomenal and you got so many top flight athletes down there too i bet that's probably a one-stop shop for some of those guys too sure yeah yeah for sure but that's i think that was pioneered by lambert like him doing that he dumped so much money in the american top team and you know fighters [ __ ] him over and there's a lot of [ __ ] but he you know he kept at it and he kept doing it and then now he's got this incredible team with his amazing history behind it yeah you can't do any better you know no well you could you could go to a little uh garage in spokane washington in the 509 and still become the champion i don't know i'm just saying i don't mean you can't do better in terms of your results okay in terms of a place to you can yeah and honestly it's so nice there like the weather's great i mean i would be afraid to live there because i've never experienced living in like hurricane season or anything like that i bet that would be pretty scary hurricanes are wild i've only experienced hurricanes when i lived in massachusetts by the time it gets up there it's kind of a
[ __ ] hurricane yeah in florida they get the full brunt of it and i don't think i could deal with that yeah it's scary i was watching a video the other day of a tornado that had hit they were in florida and a tornado hit like across the river from this guy's house there's like some body of water and across the river from this guy's house they're looking out the window and they're watching this tornado just drops down and [ __ ] the house up and then takes off yeah well isn't just recently right like it was a kentucky there was a bunch of tornadoes that are like over 100 people killed yeah horrible did you ever see what that one looked like this is what's crazy about that one it came in the middle of the night and it was lightning so so these people were driving and then lightning would flash and through the lightning because the sky was illuminated you see this funnel cloud that's as wide as like 30 blocks you're like what the [ __ ] is that and it's just you can't even predict which way it's going to go left or right imagine being in your car and you don't know what's going on and you hear there's a tornado warning yeah and then the lightning and thunder flash and you see it in the distance like holy [ __ ] yeah it reminds me that movie twister and not only that but just let's just say mother nature is a son of a gun she's a [ __ ] yeah but she's also awesome she is it's like but what what happened it's like it's so chaotic right what can possibly happen that you know the sky can turn into a funnel cloud that flattens everything in front of it see and there's a part of me that thinks that like one day this is it watch this watch this because this is so crazy watch this so imagine your car and you hear the lightning and thunder and you see that real life twister yeah oh my gosh yeah look at the size of that [ __ ] thing so that was that was what came through and just destroyed so imagine that person driving yeah right and you're looking off to your right and you see imminent death and you don't know how fast it's going it's probably so hard to
judge because you only get to see it through the flashes of lightning and it's so common there where they're like get to the cellar you know it's nice can you imagine you don't have a seller your house is just flattened like horrible horrible i feel horrible for those people like golly did you ever see what it looked like after the the impact yeah the the entire town was gone well there was i mean in chicago there there's sometimes tornadoes i think like one of the places got hit there uh naperville got hit and i saw some houses flattened over there and i was like that's kind of scary because i live you know pretty close to the area so and obviously the only thing that i've ever worried about in chicago is just how bitter cold it is you know like smacks you in the face and it's just like the wind will take you away that's not spokane cold no it's not see and that's the difference i was like ah when i moved to chicago i'm used to this you know i'm from spokane i'm from the pacific northwest you kidding me but like chicago's a different level it is a different level it's like piercing your skin cold yeah people that think new york city is cold try chicago in january i know well i'm there right now i just came back from being you know in places not as cold like l.a and i come back to school i'm like why do i live here it's horrible it's just like it just makes you angry does your baby daddy work there yeah yeah he's a police officer oh okay so whatever i know what am i gonna do it's a rough place to be a cop a lot of [ __ ] goes down in chicago yeah yeah it does exactly another reason why i'm like why do i live you know i live i come to come from a place where you can like leave the doors unlocked and you know you're relatively probably safe it's like chicago's like don't answer the door you lock everything up head on a swivel don't look down on your phone when you're walking anywhere you know it's hard to get a gun there too yeah it's like their gun laws are really tight even though everybody has a gun yeah exactly isn't that weird it's it's so weird it's not it's normal it's like there's
there's remedies that people put in place there's laws that people put in place that they think they're helping people and they're just making problems worse criminals don't pay attention to laws so we make laws that criminals don't pay attention to that keep ordinary citizens from protecting themselves you're always going to have problems it's just like they think they're doing a good thing yeah but statistically it's not good yeah you look at gun violence it's the places often times that have the strictest gun laws that have the most gun violence yeah so i was a like a day before christmas trying to get some shopping done before i had to leave and take off and i was in oakbrook which is you know not the city not downtown chicago and i look up and like lori lightfoot the the mayor is like standing 10 feet away from me and i was like this is crazy she she had her mask down here did you believe that she didn't even have her below her nose yeah i know anyways so and i'm not trying to be the mask police because i think they're bs anyways but i was like wow really uh we can't even go into a restaurant without showing you know our papers um and this chicks you know dropping the hammer on everybody and she don't even have her mask on like i was whatever terrible okay so regardless okay i leave the the mall and i go i was so hungry i went in the same parking lot to a restaurant five seconds later my phone's blowing up like ridiculous and there was a shooting two people had just got shot in the same parking lot at nordstrom's that i had just left holy [ __ ] and i'm just like why do i live here this is stuff i would never have to worry about you know so chicago's like the real deal like welcome to the jungle when you go over there it's kind of freaky have you talked to him about moving he would never you know it's only me that has to you know pack up all my stuff and say goodbye to my family you know i'm the only one that would do something like that so yeah forget it no his whole family lives there literally he's not going anywhere chicago people love chicago and i do too because
there's a culture there that is incredible they're great incredible great the nicest they talk to you you don't even know these people they just inject themselves in your business and all of a sudden you're friends that's the beautiful thing about chicago it's a big city but it has a small town mentality in terms of like how people are friendly yeah and very unusual the food's a problem i mean it's so good it's so good and dana told me that when i told him i was moving to chicago he's like babe he's like the food's a problem i was like i was like no no it's good and he's like i'm telling you the food's a problem and he was right i gained like 15 pounds when i first moved there did you eat that deep dish i eat it all like just put it in front of me i'm like mikey he'll eat it you know like i i will eat whatever you put in front of me um never thought about going up to 45 and challenging amanda for other titles i've thought about it we could do that dance i mean but everybody knows the 45 divisions bs anyways like what do they got there nothing well if kayla harrison comes over she ain't coming over you don't think so no no no i don't think so well they wanted her to come home can she even make 45 they're gonna have to like create another division for her at 55 i think or 65 or whatever she fights at i bet if someone like mike dolce got a hold of her yeah and put her through maybe she works with him right now maybe i'm talking out of my ass no he might george lockhart yeah you know a nutritionist i'm sure she could it would be miserable but of course i'm sure she could it would be miserable yeah but i mean people accomplish wild [ __ ] when it comes to wake i mean how about paulo costa how the [ __ ] has that guy ever made 185 pounds i have no idea and i don't think he's made a sense didn't he yeah like he just missed weight this last fight right i think adasanya's fight took a real toll on him mentally oh i'm sure and wasn't he like i was drunk and drinking wine like you don't deserve to win then there were so many excuses and it was the way that israel beat him right i mean izzy just lit him up like a christmas tree right that was not a competitive fight by any stretch of the imagination no and i think when
you're a guy who steamrolls everybody and walks down yoel romero yeah and you look like a just destroyer right and then this skinny dude just lights you up right and [ __ ] you up and then dry humps you from behind when you're beating you up not a good luck yeah and then marvin vittori beat him up too yeah that was a good fight though that was that was a close fight but marvin vittorio is a [ __ ] bull that guy yeah there's another one how the [ __ ] is that guy 185 pounds i stand next to him like how are you you're a heavyweight like how the [ __ ] are you 185 pounds yeah they're so big yeah i i just know that i heard anyhow from one of my friends who is signed with the pfl that she was going to stay with the pfl and then i think yesterday they said that they signed a new deal and that i believe that she's staying with the pfl she should if she makes good money yeah i mean she's won what the million dollar tournament twice yeah yeah and good for her if you don't make money it don't make sense keep making your money sweetheart that's the thing about these other organizations one thing about the ufc has so much prestige and everybody wants to be the ufc champ it's it's the number one organization in mma by far but these other organizations they have to cut their profit margins down and pay people more in order to get people over there so that i think that's great well and that's what i was just talking about yesterday some of these people don't care whether they're gonna make you know eight and eight or ten and ten because they're like i'm a ufc fighter it's the prestige of being a ufc fighter and back in the day i would've been like no way i'm totally going to the ufc you know but then it's like now that i'm older i'm like no if it don't make money it don't make sense and gilbert melendez was always telling me that and he was right you know if and that's the other thing too these other organizations they need to pay their fighters to lock them down so they don't feel like they got to go elsewhere but they they got to pay the fighters and also who cares about where you're fighting as long as you're making the money yeah
i mean if you are a professional fighter that is what you're supposed to be doing you're supposed to be trying to make the most amount possible but if you're doing it for your legacy there's a thing about like these great fighters that never compete against ufc fighters so you're like god damn it like if fedor had fought in the ufc when kane was in his prime you know how big that would have been yeah how [ __ ] huge that would have been right they had made that deal and fedor came over and he fought kane in his prime i always wished that fedor would come to the u.s why couldn't they make a deal like what it's hard to make a deal there was a lot of craziness on both sides i'm sure i don't i don't know the exact specifics but i know they tried yeah they uh they wanted to make a deal with them for sure oh for sure yeah what was that m1 that governs him or like yeah yeah they were very strict but obviously impossible to make a deal well they knew that he was an international superstar yeah and that wasn't the case with anybody else over there yeah he's like the yao ming of russia yeah he was you know when he was in his prime when he was running things in pride there was nobody like fedor no one he's my favorite fighter of all time for sure he's the one he's up there for sure yeah i mean that guy when he was at the top of his game was so complete i mean he he would lightning fast submissions he walked down crow cop and basically mostly a stand-up fight right beat the [ __ ] out of noguera in his prime i mean he was a monster he was when he was at the top he was extraordinary and the guy's still fighting which is crazy isn't he scheduled to fight really soon right yeah real soon yeah it's so funny he came to chicago and fought and i was like this is my only chance to get a picture with him so i just stormed him right as he was walking out of the cage and i got a selfie with him he's like get this shake away from me but that's my only picture of him and it's so funny because he was in chicago and wayne my coach gregory um asked me to come to the gym that day and i was like i i can't you know because i was like stalking the hotel waiting to see fedor
this guy didn't even tell me fedor came to our gym and did like a private in the back area of the gym and he was basically telling me to come to the gym because he knew fader was going to be there but he didn't tell me that he was going to be there so of course i'm like waiting to like stalk fedor and he was at the gym the whole time you know and so the only picture i got of him was me like trying to get like a quick selfie after he won and he's just like stiff army out of here yeah he's literally like get the heck away from me you could have got a perfect picture i could have got a perfect one it was like a dream come true that never happened i'm still depressed about it honestly it's like the greatest of all who is he supposed to fight i have no idea find out uh fedor's next fight yeah i guess he just stills enjoy enjoys it he at one point in time was thinking of retiring i think he did retire at one point right yeah yeah but you never know what fighters like when they say they're retiring like is it a business deal that you're retiring from or do you have an injury i know so many fighters that are retired that come back most most right but you know that's why i really appreciate the ones who don't you know the ones who say that's it i'm done and then they walk away forever and at the top of the game like andre ward yeah he's the best example yeah undefeated two division champion olympic gold medalist he's like that's it yeah see you or even um i don't even want to say his name because i am still angry about him not giving me any credit and actually talking crap about me but khabib he retired on his own terms yeah he was just like telling like i saw an oppressor they asked him a question and he was just completely downgrading the whole win and everything like that downgraded your win yeah it totally broke my heart but i will say he went out on his own terms and he said he was done yeah and you know he's done why would he i know i was like dude you're breaking my heart man like i freaking love you like seriously like ugh not only that if you watch that win how the [ __ ] could anybody say anything bad about that he must be friends with kayla harrison or something i don't know
because he was like if this is the top of the women's division it's a joke i mean like it was it wasn't very nice i didn't appreciate it khabib it was weird to watch a man to fold so quickly like get her get tired so quickly yeah yeah she's never tapped before ever really never she tapped quick too yeah were you under the chin absolutely yeah yes it's hard to tell from that um with the angle because you're smaller yeah no my shoulder blade was in there no no hooks no problem my uh my that's like the first thing that they teach you in jiu jitsu uh well at least that's where they do in in 509 in the garage that's that's what they teach us up at um back of the back of the shoulder right on the back of that brain stem there yeah i was absolutely underneath the chin yeah yeah it was uh like she quit like quitting and tapping what's the difference if you tap you're quitting if you quit you tap you had her yes that's all it was but she was so tired it was crazy it was almost like she took a lot of shots oh yeah she took a lot of shots she took a lot of heavy shots heavy shots that that jab was thunder and you were cracking her with that jab but on top of that it was also like oh my god i'm losing like she was realizing oh my god i'm like the anxiety she had to realize like she's getting [ __ ] up well and like it's so crazy the state of the art cameras and everything in the ufc and no one's like getting the right angles that they should have been in the first round i had her in a straight arm lock i was like soccer robbering that thing i was literally thinking i'm gonna get the first ever win by straight arm lock in the ufc i was like this is over i got her i just see her pissing in her pants in the back of me like holy crap i gotta get out of this and then um she got out and then i switched to attacking the kimura and then at the end of the round but i was like coming up from that first round i'm like i got this and then everyone's like how did you feel knowing that you lost the first round going into the second i'm like what are you talking about like i won the first round you know that's
just my opinion but well i think if you threaten with submissions from your back that should count for a lot yeah like that's a real close submission and even with the kimura that was very dangerous yeah there's not enough like people have this idea that if you try for a submission and then you don't get it then it doesn't mean anything no it does you're attacking you're not just and you're in trouble if i'm attacking you're in trouble exactly i think it should be like almost getting rocked like very similar yes yeah and she was rocked on the feet i could see her eyes were as big as plates and she was like oh f you know what i mean and i i could see like yeah i i'm i'm trying not to cuss right it's like i think we've already cussed i i've i might have said you know pissing i'm sorry mom i'm trying so hard why are you trying not to cuss because i'm like trying to they you there's a certain part of me where i want to be the real juliana you know especially here in joe rogan come on but then there's another side where it's like there's people that are listening to those little kids you know what i mean there's like you know um trying to be like tell them to wait for the beeped out version yeah so i'm just trying to walk a fine line here well i appreciate that i appreciate that you when you look back on the fight um did it play out the way you felt like it was going to play out yes exactly absolutely yeah i wasn't sure exactly how and i wasn't sure when but i knew without a doubt that i was going to win you know one of the things that everybody says about amanda is her power is shocking did you feel that her power was shocking um well we have to cut back to the way that i grew up for me to answer that question properly um in the 80s you know people wore those knee-high socks with like the two stripes on them right the tube socks my brother would pack more socks in the bottom of this tube sock and pack it real tight and swing it around he calls sock bombs and i he beat the heck out of us with these sock bombs like if you can take a sock bomb punch you can take a real punch punch you know and so i've been getting my ass kicked my entire life yeah does she hit a hard shirt you know
but can i take it yes am i the type of person that can take it yes like have you seen this big chin you know like i got it you know well you had a very good high guard too like you kept your your hands a good position you were very defensively responsible yeah it's it's wayne gregory you know wayne gregory has has changed my game and again that's one of the great things about moving to chicago i would have never met wayne i would have never met the the team that i have now without moving there the team that i have around me right now is extraordinary the other thing that was interesting about that fight was her last two fights before that megan anderson and cyborg what was it megan answering the cyber with that were they back to back i think so in the 45 division yeah yeah so both of her fights were at 45. like she hadn't defended 35 in quite a while two years yeah so the making that extra 10 pounds is probably a big deal like she looked very lean at the weigh-ins like leaner than you ever see her before lean and she showed up all half-naked and she was ready to go she was in the best shape of her life it looked like she looked ripped she looks yeah she looked ripped but you know often times when people haven't cut weight yeah and then they have to yeah you know that you see like uh there's a difference in like way your body bounces back from that yeah well her focus in her camp was two fights i got to make weight and then i got to worry about julianna my focus was all i have to do is worry about amanda that's it that was my only fight that was my sole focus her sole focus is i got to be miserable for the next three months because i got to make weight and make sure that i'm you know up to par and me i've been grinding the whole time so i was like all i got to focus on is just her and everybody was aware of the kayla fight everybody was aware that kayla was in the audience and they were trying to set that fight up and how dare they right because kayla is like talking about how she's training partners with amanda and how she learns so much from amanda and how amazing amanda is as a training partner and how um you know she has just learned
so much from the champ and so i'm so confused because you want amanda to win so that you can fight your friend well they just want to get paid yeah well she's getting paid she's getting paid more than i am at the uh making the millions over there at the pfl i think the idea was that and i'm just guessing that amanda you know when this worldwide recognition is the greatest women fighter of all time and then you get if she beat you then you get this giant super fight with this olympic judo medalist who seems like you know when you look at kayla she seems like a threat like you go okay well amanda's just like super strong like really good grappler knockout puncher kayla is such an elite judoka she's so good and she's so [ __ ] strong you you they go like that could be a giant super fight yeah i think they probably thought if she came over to the ufc they would have like the biggest female fight of all time yeah well i really messed that up then who needs friends with who needs enemies with friends like these you know especially with kayla and amanda being like training partners and like hugging each other and and now they're gonna fight each other like come on it looks ridiculous but if kayla wants to come over to the ufc and make weight let's let's pack your lunch 35 i mean 35 45 whatever you guys want to do you're a fighter at 45 yeah i mean all i can say like we already established if it don't make money it don't make sense and what's the job of a fighter especially with the window being this small and your opportunity being this small i gotta jump through a window this little yeah my job is to make as much money as possible right so pay me i'll fight whoever you all fight fedor pay me just pay me i hear you you know i feel like i'm not asking for too much especially now that i'm a champion i've been saving my silver bullets this entire time and now that i got it it's like i want to get is that too much to ask i mean as a professional yeah don't you feel like you shouldn't of course
there's flip side no one's holding a gun up to your head no one's making you fight no but i'm a professional yeah you know and i'm at the the height of my game i'm the champion i'm at the top of my league you know pay me also you have a child you have a future you know you have a window of opportunity with fighting that doesn't last very long i mean it's one of the smallest windows of opportunity for an elite professional athlete i gotta hold on to this little chunk of money that i have for the rest of my life you know it's like what do you i feel like i'm not asking for too much you know what i mean i just want what's fair i think if you beat amanda again at 125 excuse me when yes at 35 and then you fight her for the 45 pound title yes that would be crazy that would be like bullying yeah well somebody suggested well what if she uh doesn't decide to take the fight with you and decides to take an easier fight at 45 and retires off into the sunset like she can't she can't do that she would look like the biggest coward on earth sometimes people just get worn out by the pressure too though that's a that's a factor how hard is it to go do your road work when you're waking up in silk pajamas every morning it's marvin hagler you know he's another guy who walked away in his prime yeah good for marvin good for marvin but i mean it's got to be difficult you're sitting on 10 mil in the bank it's yeah motivation is just not there i guess it depends on what your motivation is because it never stopped floyd mayweather i know isn't he incredible he's incredible he still trains and stuff and he's still he's still doing it he still never got fat always fit you know floyd would go to a nightclub and then leave the nightclub and uh have his drivers drive the car home and he would run behind the car that's awesome run miles and in his [ __ ] jeans and sneakers that's one guy would just die to me i would love to meet him his motivation apparently i mean obviously he loves money his motivation is most certainly money but i think that's why i love him is because he loves money so much like money mayweather and he does it good you know what i mean he's
styling and profiling yeah yeah but he's always involved in like these strange things like he's in dubai all the time like involved in these weird nft deals and stuff like yeah he's a fascinating character because he literally never lost his motivation yeah even though he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars yeah he's still and he's just been so brilliant in taking these fights against guys like conor mcgregor logan paul yeah no he's very intelligent he knows what he's doing absolutely if i could pick his brain man that would be awesome yeah well you know he became money mayweather when he used to be pretty boy floyd like he was a different fighter when you first saw him fight yeah and he became more exciting with like less exciting performances because he was smarter defensively yeah but he talked so much [ __ ] that everybody wanted him to lose yeah well and boxing is a very particular thing too right so they build these guys up 30-0 and they make sure everything's got to be like tailor-made perfect for your fighter you know and that's where i think real mma fighting differs from boxing it's like you get thrown to the lion's den right away you know there's no like this especially in the ufc right yeah no effects giving us like we're giving you a fight you don't want to take it no problem there's a thousand other people that will take it how many fights did you have outside the ufc before you came to the ufc like five five wow that is wild yeah so your entire professional career other than those five fights have all been in the biggest organization i think five i'm not so i'm like yeah yeah very little um i i went uh pro after two amateur fights and then i think i took like three pro fights and then and then that was that was it how old were you when you first started martial arts training 19 years old i threw my first punch at 19. well i threw my first official punch at 19 years old and what what style was that it was a woman's cardio kickboxing class and this is a god honest truth that was how you get your start i was like i'll just be honest with you i was fat i was overweight and i needed to lose some weight and my
sister didn't want to go to the class by herself and so she invited me and i wasn't doing anything so i was like i mean i was working obviously and at that time i was a know-it-all i was moved out at 17 like i can't tell me nothing mom and dad and then and then i was a bowling alley server at night time and i worked in the casino alley so i would start my shift at 10 o'clock at night and get off at like six o'clock in the morning and i was overweight and so my sister invited me to a woman's cardio kickboxing class and i met i met rick little and kind of threw my first punch and it been over since but that's why i started in the ufc at 2013. so how many years after cardio kickboxing was that uh so i started in 2008 and uh in 2016 was your first ufc fight 2013. oh wow yeah horrible with numbers i can't sing and dance i'm a fighter i'm not good number two horrible i guess that's pretty crazy then so it's five years and and most people get like their daughters in wrestling at a young age or they put them in karate or judo or anything like that like i've just been defensive my whole life because i was always getting attacked from all sides from my brothers and sisters you know what i mean so it was like it wasn't like you know my mom put me in judo or you know i i literally just was defending myself all my life and then when i got into actual cardio kickboxing class to lose weight is when i threw my first punch so i actually started pretty late compared to the age that kids are starting now especially young girls very late yeah i mean it's getting more and more mainstream but back then in 2008 it was there was no one you know there wasn't a lot of girls fighting when was the first ufc women's fight what year was that 2013 wow yeah so i've been in the division just as long as me ronda and misha and everything like that amanda like when they were starting the division i was on the ultimate fighter so instead of them fighting one time i was fighting four times
wow yeah and they just gave a belt to rhonda you know what i mean they're just like hey welcome to the ufc here's your belt i'm like i've got to fight this girl this girl this girl this girl and you still won't let me fight the champ after this is ridiculous what do i got to do well it was a weird situation where there wasn't a lot of standouts in that 135 pound division where it like marketing wise where it like looked like someone that everybody wanted to see fight amanda and two truths um rondo's a star she was winning in 10 seconds you know she was incredible she put it on the map and opened up that door and blew the doors wide open so so props to her for that and the other second truth is i messed myself up i tore four out of five ligaments you know the delays that i've had in life have been injuries or pregnancy or more injuries you know what i mean so i there's have to blame them not letting me have the title shot and then the other half to blame is like quit messing up yourself how long did it take you to recover from the knee surgery uh at least 15 or 16 months i think wow yeah yeah well you tear four out of five ligaments half the doctors are gonna tell you you're never gonna fight again really yeah the other half are like you get a really good surge in which i had dr covini in la who did kobe bryant um jon jones george hampier like uh he's done the who's who all the la lakers uh he was like you absolutely will fight again wow and he gave me that confidence did you have meniscus damage as well so it was everything yeah did they do uh cut on the meniscus or they just leave it alone no i i don't i think they might have like sewn i'm not sure i don't really recall i just know that i tore four out of five the only one that i didn't tear is the pcl how does it feel now fine i mean i my goal in recovery is to attack your recovery like you would a fight so being diligent and disciplined and making sure you're doing this rehab and going home and doing your rehab and so i have strengthened both of my legs because i've done them both um to um the point where i don't really notice notice it because i'm and i take the
collagen making sure my joints are well oil if i don't take that collagen i feel like the tin man really yeah i i have to take this collagen to make sure that my joints and everything's feeling good if i don't it's as messed up but i do a really good job of strengthening my knees and i would argue that my one that i tore is better than the other one you know really but they're both competing with each other right because i've done them both right yeah so i just make sure that i strength it's a focus area for me and you you're telling me before we got here that your strength and conditioning program like you went several camps where you didn't have any strength conditioning program right yeah because my original trainer chris grayson he moved from chicago and he went to south carolina and i didn't have anybody so i was just doing my road work on my own push-ups pull-ups and sit-ups and just kind of like lifting just just touching the weights on my own in my in my vanity room just touching the weights yeah just touching the whites yeah what do you mean by that it's not like i'm like trying to you know be this gigantic you know hulk mania and be lifting every day like i i know how to lift if you point me in the direction and show me what you want me to do but like if i were to go by myself and be like i would be so like overwhelmed you know like i know how to lift and i'm i'm learning more you know but i'm just more of like the you point and i go you know and so i shoot whatever my trainer tells me to do but when i didn't have a trainer i was just like you've been doing this long enough you know that at the end of the day it's not about how much you can lift or how much you can bench press it's about fighting and so just do your road work touch the weights get that you know body calisthenics the push-ups the pull-ups and stuff like that and you'll be fine did you put your camps together or did you have somebody that structured them for you so rick little is my head coach and he kind of is in communication with all my other coaches in chicago he'll you know call them tell them what he wants me to work on and then you know trusting in their expertise because
they're all experts in their own field he'll call coach mike and then coach mike will obviously run me through his own practice but then he'll put attention to the detail that rick said too and so they are all kind of in communication with what rick is saying as far as what we're going to do in the camp and how we're going to win the fight and game plan so but rick is not there physically he's not there he's in spokane but when i have a fight he'll come out stay with me for a month he'll stay with me for two weeks he'll go back to spokane and then i'll come back out again and then we'll always leave together to the fight so he's always making that trip to come over and be with me and make sure that you know as long as he stays for a week or two weeks and sees that i got it then he'll go back and then he'll come you know a couple weeks later again how important is that for you because for a lot of fighters the development process is like so intense that the relationship between the coach and the athlete it's almost inseparable and then for other people they go jump from camp to camp and they they never have that sort of like deep intimacy with the the person that trains them and i'll tell you two things number one that he knows me better than anybody on this planet and he is somebody that i trust with my life this man will take a bullet for me and he is he'll take a beating if it means that i'm going to win he has my back 110 and the flip side to that is these people are gym jumpers because they don't have a coach that cares they don't have somebody that's invested in them you have to find a coach that cares about you you have to have that and they don't even have to be that good they don't have to be some world-renowned coach as long as they care and they're checking and they're putting you through what you need that's all you need but that's why these people are always jumping gyms because they can't find a coach that is invested in them and rick has always been invested in me he believed in me when i didn't believe in myself and he told me that i was going to be a champion he told me that dana white was going to open the doors to the women in the ufc
he told me stick with this you know and he's the only one that has been like that constant voice of reason and guiding me and i mean he taught me how to fight so without rick like where would i be well that's awesome that you're still with him it really is 13 years it's going to be 14 here in september i love hearing that i think loyalty is everything it's so important i'm loyal to the soil i'm a leo lion loyalty for me is like top tier you know when's your birthday august 19th i'm august 11. you're leo too see i was born on a cusp day so like i'm like have virgo tendencies what's a virgo tendency see i don't even know that much about it because i feel like my leo side is just so dominant but my sister is a virgo and you know she's also the type of person that knows me like the back of her hand we're we're very we have similar tendencies sometimes she's a little bit in a sense more feisty than me in some regard really more fights than you we'll all be like i'll joke with her and she thinks i'm being serious and so like get out of this house you know what i mean and i was like dude i'm kidding you know like and she's the one who dragged you into cardio kickboxing yes does she ever think god damn it i could have done that too she was a better and if she obviously she's got five kids so she's very busy but uh if she would have stuck with it she was a better kicker than me this girl could kick like a mule and she was a soccer player she had incredible kicks and uh she was so good at kicking so i definitely think that she could have stuck with it but it was important to have her because her knowing her beating me up and knowing me my whole life when my sister was in my corner in the early amateur days and stuff i was like i'll take on anybody because my sister believes in me you know and even rick you know so the two of them together they'd be like let's go you can do it like i know i can because i know that she knows who i am through and through that we share the same blood and and she's not lying if she's telling me i can do it then i know i can do it that's awesome yeah i think there's something to soccer players
there's something about um first of all the conditioning that soccer players have is off the charts they're some of the best and the most fit athletes in the world there's no other sport where you run as much besides maybe running yeah and so also like the strength of their legs because it's sprinting it's like you're sprinting all the time like you're not just running you're running as fast as you can and you're trying to move the ball around so you have two things in coordination you have dexterity and then you have this endurance aspect and strength aspect as well and so like if you look at jose aldo's one of the best kickers ever the best leg kicker ever in the ufc like one of them soccer player you started out in soccer kenny florian started out in soccer too like quite a few people that were like elite soccer players that if you think about how much they kick and kicking a ball like it's not much different than throwing a kick like a body kick or a roundhouse kick yeah or you even see like gymnasts like girl gymnasts that have like come into fighting they just it's very similar oh yeah well the the strength that they have yeah the strength and the like or i guess we've even found out like stripping too like you just the other day you're holding up that girl like she's like yeah she's like my my uh my stripping has helped me has helped me in fighting i mean you could find a similarity in any sport or any physical activity that you do and and apply it into fighting oh she's a little firecracker oh yeah she's great i love that i was like that's great she's pretty funny you go girl yeah you go girl all day get your money yeah we found that in jiu jitsu at break dancing you know with richie martinez and gio martinez at 10th planet they they came over and they were these break dancers and they they're so [ __ ] strong and so so mobile and agile and that eddie bravo started like incorporating break dancing training he was like there's there's something to that like it's obviously look how these guys can manipulate their body like do you ever watch break dancing well i'm really good friends with fee from the jabbawockeez and uh one of their older guys uh not like he doesn't go there anymore his
name is his name is ricky too and they would always tell me that they they love fighting and they also like kind of their similarities there between their break dancing and their moves as there is in fighting and so i didn't realize that by any means but maybe i don't know i'm like what the isolation holes are like what do you mean you know but they would say that there's similarities between their dancing and and being a jabberwocky and fighting and i'm like that's very interesting well if you ever go to stance elements on instagram okay stan seligman stance elements go to the page it's like these people are the biggest [ __ ] physical freaks like some of the [ __ ] they do it's like it should be in the olympics well they're probably so good they don't need to fight so good for them but it's just when you think about oh wow like give me a do that one the far right that one looks pretty crazy these these dudes what the [ __ ] that they can do is like they're defying gravity and physics like the amount of strength that it takes like how is he spinning on his hands like that because he's a [ __ ] awesome freak look at his head like what is this guy's name he just looks like a little ten-year-old 13 maxo max max 0 fk he's from france of france yeah there's a lot of them from korea a lot of them from that little boys from korea you can tell look at that little fella yeah well so these are young kids and look how good that guy is as a young kid go to that guy right there oh here's a little tiny kid yeah look at this little kid maybe he's not jesus christ that's insane that is insane did you say where he's from that kind of body japanese i apologize to anybody i might have offended his japanese there's a lot of them from japan that's incredible yeah i mean it's just what they can do physically at such a young age and that these guys they do this go to that what's his name b boy pocket kim he's the freak of all freaks
there's a chick dude she's got she can she's got some moves oh there's a lot of them that are chicks let me see what and this is breaks break dancing that's what they call it yeah that's the style give me some music so i can hear what they're doing it to some missy elliot probably [Applause] [Music] i watch it i get tired i mean i watch it and i'm like oh that looks exhausting it's kind of like a moving dance gymnastics right [Music] i love that yeah it's pretty wild who's that guy on the far right there that's not that b-boy pocket kim guy is it no that guy's japanese there's so many of them it's just uh that culture the culture of break dancing is so strong and the athletes that do it like this i don't think most people know how crazy what they're doing is like most people on the outside they don't they don't know how wild the this this sport or this uh art form has gotten it takes a lot of athleticism that's for sure and coordination a video of this guy because he's incredible there's a video right there jamie on the grass kill that [ __ ] music immediately jesus you know they look like gymnasts they look like you know those guys that hold on to the bars and they do the thing on the bar like they're holding onto the bars like that's what it looks like but no bars exactly and you know and obviously like look at this [ __ ] aerial he's doing that is nuts these guys got to be like stunt doubles for like movies in hollywood right like those martial art movies yeah well look how crazy that is and everything like the flexibility the athleticism the just the physical strength to distort or contort your body i would appreciate if you take that mask off while you're doing it though sir totally how dare you well it's gone to a point where people like want to keep them on right yeah like they don't want to show their real faces or maybe they didn't brush their teeth or something like that
they're bad breath yeah i think it's also like a a signal that you're a good person like hey i'm doing the right thing i'm wearing my mask i would be considered very disrespectful then no logical yeah exactly it's not you know it's just silly at this point it's like i just that's not protecting you i know have you seen that guy where he takes a pool from a vape pen on the outside and then just like clouds and plumes of smoke coming out it's like what is it really protecting it's well that's what happens with air yeah and that's when you breathe the reason why you can breathe is the reason why the mass doesn't work yeah and then also like the filter it's going through there the particles of covet are smaller now can it stop some of the virus from getting to you maybe i don't know maybe can stop some of your virus from getting out to other people maybe i mean do you remember when we used to like blow out candles on birthday cakes like we were wild back then like that wasn't enough that's a super spreader event now yeah exactly so when you do like walk me through like a typical camp okay like if you're say you're going to defend your title against amanda um what how much time do you want to give yourself and like how do you prepare i've already started you've already started yeah yeah i just got to keep the foundation first off so that means going to the gym not three times a day anymore but at least showing up at least a few times a week and and getting that foundation with the strength and conditioning and the conditioning and everything like that so you just stay in a good place yeah i'm not as as um aggressive with you know training six days a week um and i will once i get into like official camp but it's important now to keep the foundation and to keep the base and that means lifting still and running still and making sure that you know i'm not turning back into the tin man you know because nothing is harder than getting out of shape and then trying to get back in shape again it's brutal talk about a mental f like uh how did i even do this
before like you gotta just stay consistent is that one of the hardest things about getting off or a knee injury like yours uh staying consistent no getting over the fact that you're out of condition too like not only are you well not even just a knee injury it's like go to any you know i think it's changing but like typical fighter after a fight what do they do they get fat they eat whatever they want and they don't you know step into the gym until their next fight again yeah uh for not everybody but i have i'm not gonna lie have been that fighter before where i'm just like chilling you know until i go to the next camp how much time would you give yourself off um i mean so fighters fight like two times is is a lot um i don't think it's that that much yeah um but when you're at that high of a level you know that's plenty and so if you had a fight after the fight and back in the day you would just kind of [ __ ] off yep for how long um weeks sometimes even months not do [ __ ] yeah but i was in a younger stage where i would just be like partying and living it up and i didn't have any uh let's say little lives depending on me you know so i was like a single living the life you know and enjoying myself now it's like you can't do that and especially with her being in school it's forced me to get on more of a routine do you think also though that the progress you've made from not doing that has made you more disciplined because you've recognized the value in that discipline well not only that but just staying consistent and active uh staying active i think is a very important thing especially as a fighter and i never used to think like that you take a loss i won't fight again for a year because i'm so depressed and f fighting you know but when i took a loss to jermaine i was like i'm gonna you know disappear off the face of the planet and cry myself to sleep again like i did with valentina my coach wayne was like no you need to take another fight immediately you need to stay active you have to stay active and i took another fight about a month and a half later against sarah mcmahon
and so staying active and disciplined and grinding it's tiresome and it kind of gets you know like but then once it becomes your norm it's like this is what i do and then you think what else you got to do today you know what i mean you're a fighter you're a professional fighter what else you got going on you know you should be in the gym you should be training you should be you know eating right and doing the right things that's your job so once i kind of had that realization i was like okay it's time to grow up a little bit and this is my craft and i have to keep honing in on my craft i have to keep evolving i have to keep adding i have to stay consistent and i have to apply that discipline every single day you know so was the with valentino fight was the hardest loss for you absolutely yeah why um because i hadn't lost in the ufc at that point and i think i had it was a big gigantic lesson in underestimating your opponent you know i thought valentina 17-time muay thai world champion all i gotta do is take this chick to the ground it's over you know i was winning that fight but i got overzealous i was trying to punch a hole through her face and and i ended up getting caught on the top her on her back in an iron bar and i'm just like out of all the ways i absolutely didn't think that that was going to be the case right you know but it's like hello you're fighting at the highest level you have to assume everybody is well-rounded just because she's a 17-time muay thai world champion doesn't mean she doesn't know jujitsu you know so that one was something that i um was beating myself up for for so long because i was absolutely certain that i was gonna stomp a mud hole in her and i was until i wasn't you know so that's that's one that i took very very difficult when you think about defending your title does she pop into your mind about somehow another getting a rematch absolutely do you think you could make 125. i have in the past i fought twice at 125. how hard is it um well when i had the notice the first time i made it
no problem literally no problem the second time uh i absolutely did not make uh i was off by one pound and i i didn't make weight by one pound because i took that fight on such short notice and um it's not something that i would like to entertain because i have a gigantic love for food and i don't want to live miserably i truly feel this is going to sound weird i truly feel like i'm a natural 135 like what do you walk around at i'm like at 1 45 you know i walk around like 1 45 on a bad day catch me on a bad day i walk around like 148 150 okay but i walk normally at 1 45. when i'm in camp i can't get any i can't get any higher than 143. um not because for anything other than the fact that like i'm training so much that like i wake up consistently 142 143. um but i feel like i'm a true natural 135 25 of course i can make but is it going to be annoying yes and is it something that i feel like doing no not really but again what did i say yeah you pay me i'll go down to 115 if you want me to you know i'll go to 155 like i don't care i'll fight anybody just as long as if if i don't make money it don't make sense well i was just thinking that like uh maybe even a catch weight between the two of you two champs depending upon what amanda wants to do now have they made some sort of uh if they started negotiations or discussions or brought up i can only speak from what i would do personally and she thinks it was a flu she thinks she mentally checked out she thinks that she was just you know had to go see a sports psychologist to figure out why her brain stopped ticking you know at the moment and that she just gave up and quit on herself whatever her reasoning is she's probably a little embarrassed she's probably a little stung and she probably wants to stay active and go and get her belt back and and show everybody that it was a fluke you know that's probably what she's thinking that's probably what her camp is probably telling her you know that's the big money fund anyway right now what did he say dana white the biggest women's fight in history in
history so i mean make sense you got to have a dance partner you have to you know it's it takes two to tango it's not just a one-stop shop here like you have to have somebody that's going to want to dance with you and what not better opponent than somebody that just beat you and and just you know put a blemish in your gigantic record of being the greatest of all time oh there's no question and there's no question i mean it's going to be huge yeah it's going to be huge yeah well that's what they said biggest fight in women's history sounds pretty big to me and he said to the kayla harrison fighting amanda nunes was like a mega million dollar fight he's quoted as saying mega million dollars by it so if that's the case then what is this yeah you know i think it's bigger yeah that's just me though of course i'm going to advocate for myself of course well how can you not listen that's always been a hot topic is you know the subject of fighter pay i'm always on the side that fighters should get paid the most amount possible yeah and i think that without fighters there's no sport right this is where the money should be that and also you have this small window yeah you know it's it's a slippery slope right because oh you don't want to fight for 10 and 10 well there's a thousand other people that can't wait to put these ufc shorts on that are going to fight for that and no one's holding the gun up to your head but then there's that flip side that like i said those silver bullets i've been saving these silver bullets so that when i'm the champion i could finally advocate for myself with confidence to say i'm the champion now and you must pay me yeah and then you get into that bad guy good good cop bad cop type of scenario was like well i've been establishing these relationships with the ufc since 2013 i love these guys they're great like i'll go have a drink with them any all day and then there's the other side where it's like you can't keep advocating for yourself because you're screwing yourself when you got to have a middleman you can't you it's business yes but then once you do business then they hate you you know and i get
tense yeah and i'm like how do i how do i do this you know what i mean because i want these people to still you know rep for me but then i i don't want them to hate me because i'm asking for more money but how many times does that bother them where then they end up not putting the belt on you and not showing up to the press conference you know what i mean so that's the thing right it's like you gotta first of all someone else has to do the talking you don't do the talking you just do the fighting but the problem is when you're talking to them too yeah and that is the problem because every deal that i've ever done it's been me and it's been like me going in there and be like all right yeah sure you know oh you're feeding me this awesome meal yeah i'll fight whoever you want just give me the pen you know and i'll do it and any time i go back to you know somebody else like you idiot why would you do that i'm like it was really good he was so nice you know it's like and i love those guys i love sean shelby i love dana white like i really do like i think they're awesome but there's other people that are like more on the business side where they're like you just made the biggest mistake of your life so do you have a business manager that handles those things now yes chad bronstein he's the he's the owner of philo he's the owner of usana he's got me all these awesome sponsors okay he's got me the most money that i've ever made pre-champ you know beautiful yeah i just started working with him and he's legitimately changed my life him and aristotle loomis yes well i can't imagine how much money the new fight is going to generate the rematch is going to be gigantic i mean that's what they i'm just i'm just using his words again he said mega million dollar fight he said biggest fight in women's history well i think the idea was that amanda was undefeated and she was a goat and this would be the big challenge to her but also that's you know big challenge you guys even you that's why i came here to have a bone to pick with you even you were like the weaker the two weeks before the fight would be into the ufc and they'd
be like oh yeah ufc 269 is coming up amanda nunes defending her belt against juliana pena anyways valentino's the only one that can pose a threat to uh amanda nunes you know i'm like i'm fighting her you guys won't even say my name i'm fighting you're talking about somebody who's in another division who's lost to her two times you guys won't even give me any credit in the world it's like nobody was giving me credit for that fight well not even you listen reality is if you look at your record and if you look at the people that you lost to and you look at what she's done it looked like she had a massive advantage over you she was being called the greatest woman of all time you lost to jermaine duran to me you had one who'd you beat after that sarah mcmahon you beat sam mcmahon and then was where one more fight after that i was supposed to fight holly but she pulled out for her injury and then since holly pulled out amanda it was amanda so that's one loss yeah so you had one loss one win and then fight for the title it's it's not doubting your abilities weirder things have happened weird things have happened but you can't say that when you're talking about the future of fighting if you're looking at like the rankings and you're looking at what what's who's going to challenge who and how things line up it's not a disrespect to you it's just the reality of your record yeah was 0-2 when she got a title shot there was other people that like did absolutely nothing that were getting tested yeah but that was when misha had lost to him that would misha had lost to ronda over in strikeforce so it was like there was history behind it and the the division was very shallow back then yeah the division when ronda first won the title or came over and became the champ yeah the division is night and day different yeah and there's so much talent right there's so much town 25 there's so much talent 35 yeah so when we're doing that we're just trying to think of like what's the biggest hype up fight right valentine is one of the greatest martial arts practitioners period and when you look at her being a threat to amanda you would say that would be the biggest
threat to amanda and you're so you're trying to set things up and talk about the future yeah let's just talk about realistically based on accomplishments yeah but now yeah obviously you've accomplished something that nobody did so it's a different animal now yeah so now going into this fight i'll talk about you very differently yeah oh wow i hope so i'm like i gotta go i gotta go to texas and i gotta i gotta clear my name i'm sick of this no no respect listen i'm not i'm i'm not here to disparage you i'm here to pump you up no i know i'm pumped up i love that win i love it i went crazy i know the whole the everybody did i think the the highlight for me honestly was hearing dc scream like that like he's like a little girl octagon like his the range that he hit he was like yeah thank you i'll show you the text that he sent me he was like look at the noises we're making i know because we're both like oh my god oh my god oh my god yeah cause it was so crazy no when you took her down i remember screaming like oh my god i'm blowing people's eardrums out yeah well it was crazy because leading up to the fight you know you do the fighter interviews and uh dc was just not giving me the time of days i'll turn in his chair rolling his eyes and i'm just like am i bothering you like i'm are you okay like what how are you doing today dc do you think he's turning his chair and rolling i get a zoom call with megan and uh john and dc and like i'm trying to talk to them but like dc he just didn't look like he was having a good time paying attention you know so i asked him in the fighter interview i said how they they want to know like how are you feeling going into this fight i said well how did you feel you know when you were in my position and fighting for you know a championship and he was like well sometimes it went my way and sometimes it didn't sometimes i lost and sometimes it was very like you're [ __ ] you know so uh that's the sentiment that i got and so then we went to the espn desk and he asked me on air like um you know you asked me in the fighter interviews you know how i felt or what you were asking me for advice and you know to some people when you're in your position and you ask somebody else for
their advice it looks like weakness you know and i'm like i'm only asking you dc because how many title shots uh did you get and he was like i fought in the ufc i think don't quote me 13 or 14 times out of the 13 and 14 times that dc fought in the ufc 11 of them were title fights wow 11. that's crazy yes so i'm like of course i'm asking you right of course i want to pick your brain on this i i need to know because you've been there i'm looking to you as a guide that can give me a nugget anything anything i'll take you know it's not weakness it's just because you've been there 11 times respect yeah yeah yeah so i was really happy to hear him screaming and he's like she's telling me right now i told you so i'm like i did tell you so i told you but that i told you so look at us going crazy do it from the beginning yeah i think oh okay this is no in the beginning if you turn it up you can hear dc scream like a little girl look at sean shelby's mouth over there on the left [Applause] oh you deserve it they tell you not to climb up there right yeah look my coach like boosted me up like a little child he like was holding my shirt the entire time to make sure that i didn't fall down amazing he made me get on the cage like i was absolutely like nah i'm not gonna get on he's like get out of the cage like okay how does that feel looking at that it was i felt bad you see that bald head right there where in there yeah i kicked him in the back of the head when i got up there on accident uh he'll be okay yeah no he'll be fine but it was it felt great right because wayne was like look it out there look it out there look at all those people you know and the rick's like get on the cage and so they boosted me up there i kicked that guy in the head and i was like oh my gosh i'm up here like this is my first time ever being on the cage this is nuts does it feel crazy just seeing that it does it does you know what's even crazier that thrilling agony came out and so my sister she's got to be like what 125. she's a little thing and my strength and conditioning trainer too
he's jacked you know this big guy both of them after the fight were like oh i was holding issa my daughter i was holding easter the whole time i was like oh that's great you know i went and watched a thrill in agony and pause the frame on my family there is a complete stranger holding my kid and i'm like grace i thought you were holding issa she's like she's really heavy and she was squirming all over the place i set her down for a second and then i was like alex i thought you were holding he's like well i was and then like when you pause the frame on the thrill in agony it's just some random guy and i'm like mom who is this guy holding my daughter i thought she was supposed to be with you guys and they're like that's your that's your train that's your friend and i'm like what are you talking about that's my friend like yeah he's a part of your camp i'm like no he's not and they're like yeah his wife's in a wheelchair i'm like i don't know anybody whose wife is in a wheelchair and i'm telling him looking at this guy's face right now i don't know who that is and they're i still haven't figured out who it is whoever you are yeah thanks thanks for holding my kid up dude literally yeah cause he's holding her he's grabbing her he's he was cheering for me he was happy but it was so funny in the thrill of agony i'm just like i don't who's that rando yeah all these people are like claiming that they were holding my kid the whole time and then when it cuts back it's like some stranger holding her oh my god that's hilarious yeah that's so funny yeah it was funny it was great when you watch the video of it does it seem surreal it does it a little bit it does i will say on the flip side i knew i was gonna win and i expected it of myself and i absolutely expected you know whether i was gonna walk away with one leg or one arm i was gonna walk away with the belt that night no matter what so i knew that um but and i expected it of myself but there was that surreal moment of like okay this is checked off we did this we got this and that also part people ask me that all the time like yeah it's awesome i won that's great but i don't want to
keep focusing on this i want to talk about the future and what's next and how i'm going to you know move on to the next thing which is retaining the belt and defending and getting on to the next thing because i had already known in my head that i will be a champion one day and that it's going to happen so it's like that's great i want to always remember this moment and i always will i think the moment speaks for itself as far as being very big but now i'm ready to go and do the next thing that's the champion's mentality yeah yeah move forward yeah and now when you think about your future how old do you know i don't know i'm just getting old i think i'm 32. you don't know i'm either 32 or 33. you don't know 89. i was born in 89 and i i mean i could tell you but i don't i'm well when in what august of 89 august 89 2000 you're 32 about to be 33 right yeah you're 32 about no i think i'm 30 wait i'm going 2022 subtract 1989 right yes it says 33 but is am i gonna be 33 in august yeah yeah but you're not fighting you know these girls are coming in here like 18 years old hot off the press you know like how old do you think you'll be when you stop well that was the question right my brother was like do you really want to be fighting when you're 40 that's embarrassing and i'm like but women are still there yeah he told me that one time he's trying to [ __ ] with you well he's always been trying to mess with me my entire life that's what brothers do right that's embarrassing what if you're winning at 40. yeah but that's what i'm saying what i'm saying is is that women are so incredible that like why not be fighting when i'm 40 right because women are awesome and we can do everything so i don't necessarily yeah i don't necessarily think that fighting at that age is a is a bad thing it's absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about by any means but do i want to be fighting when i'm i don't know bernard hopkins was in his prime at 40. yeah he really was he was destroying people at 40. he fought all the way up till he was 50 at a world-class level wow and see that's what people are telling me now i'm in my prime now so like am i going to be in my 40 now when i'm 40 i don't know i think
that primes today are different because of nutrition and because of strength and conditioning methods and because of recovery methods i think people are able to maintain their prime longer however when it comes to strength and conditioning and all these different things like one thing that you have to take into account with fighting is damage and so many fighters by the time they get to a certain age their necks [ __ ] their backs [ __ ] their knees are [ __ ] there's something wrong yeah but and then they're they're just not a hundred percent ever they're always going to be a shadow of what they were five years ago six years ago right and you see it in fights you see the deterioration and a lot of it's just based on the amount of damage they take in training and fights yeah that's why again it's very important that you try to capitalize on every every opportunity that you get and that means monetary wise because i'm pretty sure i'm going to need knee replacements when i'm like 50 or 60. you think so probably why do you think that because i've had two knee surgeries right and like don't people get knee replacements or hip replacements and stuff like that i'm gonna have to have pulled money from somewhere to have this type of surgery i mean my my surgeon he told me uh you know when i talked to asked him that question he says you know by the time you're going to have to be worrying about that we'll be living on the moon so i always thought that technology will be have advanced way before like by the time you get there you know michael bisping has two fake knees now see yeah see but he was an animal like bisping when he was training he was in agony his knees were chewed up and he'd still run ten files yes but just mangle his [ __ ] knees yeah well road work is super important yeah you know he's uh just one of those guys just all grit not just all grit obviously talent and intelligence as well but just so much [ __ ] grit that he wore his knees out um but the knee replacement thing is a scary one totally i feel like we're so close to being able to figure it out with biologics they're so close with
like what do you mean stem cells and different things that are regenerating tissue that you might be able to fix it yeah without having to put some sort of a plastic version of a kneecap in there well and i've had those treatments uh i had prp injections and i can tell you okay first off the most pain i've ever been in was coming out of that knee surgery the second most pain that i've ever been in is when i got the prp i was in excruciating pain i was gonna stab that doctor with my little pen i had i was screaming i begged her to stop i was like i don't want this anymore um i was like do you hate me that's how i felt like why are you doing this to me because i know um after my fight i think sarah mcmahon had told me when i fought sarah that she had got it and it wasn't painful for her so she's like i don't really know what you're talking about but the prp injection that i experienced was the most painful thing i've ever experienced in my life and i will never get it again because i was in so much pain really yeah that's weird i've had um regenecane which is a very similar process to prp where they take your platelets they take your blood out and they spin it in a centrifuge just like prp but they add a bunch of stuff to it it's really effective is it usada safe uh yeah it's used how to say it a lot of fighters have gotten it and in fact a lot of fighters used to have to go over to germany to get it oh i see them going to colombia lately yes that's um bio accelerator that's uh stem cells yeah a lot of guys go over there yeah that's a good thing too but um anyway i've had regenaking done a bunch of times and i never felt that kind of pain so i don't know maybe that lady did hate you i i think yeah i was like she told me that she has her nfl guys the the bears players she says that they cry she says that you hit i handled it better because she's done it to some of the bears players and they cried really i thought she was just spinning spinning tails there because i was gonna i was gonna throttle that chick like i don't know why it would be so painful that's weird it was really painful but i do hope that like dr kvitney says that we'll be living on the moon by the time i have to worry about that type of
situation however when i do get to that point i'm gonna need to pull some money from somewhere to get it done you know yeah what do you think you're gonna do when you stop fighting that's a really great question so i wanted to talk to you about something um campbell mclaren love him i love campbell love campbell campbell's the reason why i got into the ufc i know he told me he hired you he hired me to be the backstage interviewer yes yes i actually saw an interview of you and him the other day he sent it to me and you're you guys are talking about cars like he was going to start a car show or something like that it was going to be like about fast cars and you're young you got all this head full of hair it's hilarious um but uh campbell mclaren hired me as his color commentator for compate global so i was during this camp with amanda flying down to miami every friday and i was going to the univision studios and i was there on air commentator for uh streaming on paramount plus so i've dabbled a little bit in commentating i love commentating i mean i could talk about mma all day i could talk to a rock about this stuff like i i love commentating and i love mma well what about doing a podcast on mma the beautiful thing about that is you would control it yeah like so it doesn't matter if it's bellator pfl one championship you could do a podcast on mma and like obviously you're great at talking and you you very opinionated yeah it's perfect for you well and and chad my agent was just telling me about this like we gotta get you on a podcast i i feel two ways about it number one i don't even know how to use tick tock i i don't i don't have a tick tock i don't know how to use it but you won't have to you're doing a podcast right now and you're killing it right wow you're doing great so if you did what you're doing right now by yourself yeah you do that so the second part of that is um timing everyone wants to are you ready to go to hollywood and make movies are you ready to do this and then like all i want to talk about or do is is fighting and
focus on my career right now so i feel like doing a podcast especially being a single mom it's it's taking away from training and being a mom like it's it it's hours you know sometimes your pockets are like three hours long yeah you don't have to do that you'd have to do hours you could just do one hour and what you could do is like have it set up where you have um some sort of a room that's got a table and a microphone a camera on you yeah and you just talk about how you feel about upcoming matchups you know or after the fight you can talk that's a great one campbell gave me all the equipment i have a yeti microphone and i got the headset i had he sent me the camera i just don't know how to do anything i'm just you can learn you're smart yeah i know i am i just i i think i probably haven't done it because i feel like every tom dick and harry has a podcast every day you wake up as like a new guy starting a podcast um and then i also feel like timing is an issue for me every time dick and harry is not the ufc bantamweight champ in the world true true but it means a lot yeah yeah dude you beat the goat and and i feel this way about myself i'm like nobody really cares do they like they do care no they do well also you're an engaging person you're interesting you're funny you're smart and you can do something like that if they have a if if someone has a camera on you and you start talking about the ufc people would go like oh what does juliana think about this yeah and they will they'll tune in yeah you know that's i i think it's a great way for you to set up what you could do in the future look at brandon chop he makes infinitely more money now than he ever did when he was doing fighting he doesn't have to fight ever again in his life yeah he's a great crossover in that regard absolutely yeah and other guys are doing that now too yeah you know uh josh thompson has a great podcast he does a big john mccarthy yeah another excellent example and those guys i mean who better to learn about or listen to talk about fights than josh he's been around forever he was one of the best in the world at one point in time yeah big john mccarthy veteran been around seen everything those two guys together
they're perfect yeah but doesn't that also require more homework and study on my end you're talking about after fighting or during fighting because yeah after fighting i could see that all day long but like for the most part people ask me about fights and stuff and i'm like i this is going to sound horrible it's super selfish i don't care about anybody but myself and i have no idea you probably know more about it than i do because all i care about is this fighter right here like that's that's the only one that i'm concerned about so i would have to do study i would have to like you know know these guys more and i already do that on the side with kombate so that's hard enough as it is because every week i'm flying down the other friday to have to talk about these fighters i mean it's work right i get it but i think that sets you up for a podcast doing the kamate stuff that um allows you to get a base under you just like a base of training from cardio kickboxing that's a base of training to eventually go do a podcast yeah and and thank god for campbell mclaren for giving me that opportunity shout out to campbell yeah for giving me that opportunity he's so funny isn't he what you could do though is you could do a post fight thing it'd be much easier yeah so just i mean imagine just two big fights like look at uh cyril gone yeah and francis and gano and brandon mourinho davis and figueretto just just from watching those fights you'll have so many opinions just those and it doesn't even have to be a whole hour yeah but the idea is like get used to doing it yeah get used to doing it do it put it out there and then eventually it could be a business that's really profitable yeah yeah i i i think you're right and uh i think that chad's been telling me that and i just have to fight and find and figure out a way to facilitate it because like i said i do have all the equipment i just need to learn how to use it like i don't i have a mac i just don't know how to use it that won't be hard to do that's that's not hard to do the hard part is having a [ __ ] personality and you have that yeah you know that's the hard part you already have the hard part yeah you got that
[ __ ] dialed in but the other thing to do for you and i would like to see a lot of fighters do that is commentary on you know ufc broadcasts yeah i mean dc is obviously the big dog over there but paul felder does an amazing job dominic cruz isn't fantastic at it it was one of those things where i was falling on deaf ears again i've asked i've told them i've wanted to do it and i'm just talking to a wall like that that'd be great um but nobody's listening to me maybe they'll listen now that you're the champ you know maybe it's more likely because i think that you know we need a woman's perspective especially a veteran woman's fighting perspective on you know big fights you know there's there's not much difference between men and women when it comes to fighting but there's enough yeah that i would want to hear from a championship woman's perspective yeah and when it comes to a big fight like say you know if valentina is fighting someone you fought valentina and doing commentary like that happens all the time in boxing right you like people who fought people will do commentary that would be fantastic yeah and and that um also reminds me of i thought for a long time and that's refreshing to hear you say that actually because i thought for a long time they just don't want to hear what a chick has to say about fighting maybe well megan levy does it yeah but megan olivier is not you know sitting on the booth with you guys and and walking through the fight as a caller commentator she's just kind of providing she could but she's just kind of providing information about who's about to go get into the octagon it's different i'm like they must not like respect what a woman's opinion would be because it's been how long that they have never allowed a woman to like sit next to you guys and and do what you guys do like together you three well other than you the third woman in the booth and then you who would it be right you know what i'm saying like you you want someone like dc's got a big personality sure you know and dc and i are tight yeah so when we do it together with john anik it's like we love each other it comes out and megan i love megan too totally but we you know you could do that too like 100
like i i have 100 faith in you i would i would 100 hire you to do that yeah i mean i would too but again i'm just my own advocate here just trying it out a big professional uh fight with that involved women not even just women i mean that's the only thing about it let's talk about men's fight for a second what did you think about the mourinho and uh figured out fight i would have to go watch it again yeah but after it was over i thought mourinho had done to win a decision and the thing that drives me crazy is they always say in order what have they said forever in order to be the champ you got to beat the champ decisively definitively you know i don't feel like he was definitively you know leaps and bounds above moreno and so i'm just like i i was shocked because i figured you know he had done enough to retain his belt so i was like that's i was not a happy camper i'd have to watch it again because sometimes when you watch a fight live you you know you're just so caught up in the fight i always say that if you're doing commentary you're not really scoring a fight because when you're doing commentary you're just trying to give life right you're trying to like you're trying to express things that enhance the people's opinion or the people's uh enjoyment of the fight yeah i'm doing it for fans where they realize that i'm one of them i'm a fan too i'm i'm i'm so pumped and excited about this that i hope it enhances their viewing pleasure that's what i'm trying to do but you can't do that and score yeah so if i was to score really accurately i would have a piece of paper and i would shut my [ __ ] mouth yeah and i would just walk i would have like two like when eddie bravo used to score fights yeah he he would do like in between round scoring like harold letterman does on boxing yeah and we would have he would have two pieces of uh piece of paper with two sides to it and he would write down takedowns this that you know submission attempts yeah kicks punches he'd mark all those things down and then afterwards he would like add in like what did more damage like think about in his head and then he would give her perspective it was pretty
accurate that way yeah but when you're doing that you're not talking yeah when you're doing that you're just sitting and watching when i'm talking i'm trying to make it exciting sure i'm trying to i'm trying to you're adding colors yes i'm adding color i'm trying to make it exciting and and i'm trying to honor their performances right like even though i was like making a lot of goofy noises when you're fighting yeah i was trying to honor your performance because i was like this is i wanted everyone to know how i really felt this is [ __ ] amazing and i want i want that to be contagious right and i'll segue that by saying that i think that obviously i'm biased towards mourinho winning the fight because he's mexican he's hispanic like i am and he's fighting a brazilian like i did and then he also in some regard did the impossible too because nobody counted him out this guy's last seated on the ultimate fighter you know he took a fight on short notice the first time they fought second time it wasn't even close he just closed figured it out and then the third time i'm i'm trying to like look at his fight and relate it to my own career and being like this guy is not supposed to win this guy is not supposed to have the belt but he made it happen anyways and so of course i'm biased towards mourinho because you know i feel like we're in the same position we're the underdogs and so um that's where i think my bias comes into play but i also think he he did great you know yeah you got knocked down but you didn't stop him and he came back and he hurt you too you know so it was a it was a close fight i would have to watch it it was a close fight it was you know it didn't seem like a robbery to me but it did seem like again i'd have to watch it right i thought i was surprised i thought mourinho had done enough well my question is this aren't you like how is how do you for example you've been doing this since the ufc started you know or it's pretty damn close ufc twelve first one i worked at sure you've been doing it for a long time don't you get burned out sometimes like don't like how many you say i would have to rewatch
it like wouldn't that be like such a taxing chore for you to have to do because you already watched it and you already had to call it like that's hilarious i don't think like that at all no i get pumped to watch that fight again yeah no i rewatch fights all the time do you i love them yeah oh i'm not burned out even a little yeah that would be hard right no the only thing that was hard for me was travel the only thing was hard to me like the flights to england australia and you know brazil i loved being there when the fights were on it was just physically i do so many other things yeah the problem is if you fly back from brazil yeah brazil is awesome but when you fly back i'm wrecked for days right so that means my performance and everything else is off right so my performance and training is off when i do jiu jitsu my performance and doing comedy is off because i'm tired yeah my performance in podcasting's off because my brain is [ __ ] flat yeah that's all that is but even like having to be like up to speed with every single fighter i mean they're just filtering these guys in left and right and like having to like have that knowledge on who's fighting every time has got to be like taxing i love it no no problem at all yeah no no it's my favorite thing i think for me i would say because i've been commentating with kombate that the struggle has been that i'm trying to be on my own thing yes and then having to travel every week to be talking about these guys and of course i love doing it but like my brain especially leading up to amanda i had to tell them a month ahead of time that i had to quit because i needed to focus on myself it was hard for me to be present calling these fights when i'm like i'm making a mistake by being here because i should be training right now yeah no that completely makes sense yeah but that's a different animal than me you know i'm i'm uh i'm so thankful that i have that gig oh yeah and i'm so thankful that i was there early on you know when i first started working for the ufc i was on news radio which is a sitcom kathy griffin and yeah no not no redhead she's in that show is she not no it's vicki lewis kathy griffin was on suddenly susan i think you're right i'm so sorry no no
no it was the same era i feel like kathy's great but vicki vicki's the right she's the regimental she's the og okay she's the og my bad my bad uh but anyway um when i was on that sitcom i was doing the ufc and flying these like [ __ ] puddle jumper planes like like things going down yeah like in dalton alabama and weird spots yeah but um people would act like i was doing porn or something they're like why are you doing that yeah and i'm like i love it and they're like bro it's like you think it's smart that you do cage fighting commentary yeah like what the [ __ ] are you doing why are you why are you doing backstage interviews at cage fights yeah and i'm like i don't know what to tell you i love it yeah i'm like i'm not going to stop doing it yeah and so it was a thing where i was like i was wondering if this was like damaging my career but i was like i don't care i love doing it yeah and then um it got to the point where it was costing me too much money because um i would make more money doing stand-up on a weekend than i would doing the ufc and it was hard because i was flying all over the place so i quit yeah in like 98. yes i did it from 97 to 98. so i did it for two years essentially at the end of 98 i was like ah they had one in japan i was like i can't go to japan man i'm busy yeah and so then um the ufc was sold to zufa and then in 2001 i met dana and i became friends with him and then he's the one to talk me to doing comedy commentary oh the first time i ever did commentary was uh ufc 37 and a half that was the uh vitor belfort versus chuck liddell fight and that was on best damn sports show period so it was a big deal that they were on best damn sport show period and i was on fear factor and so he was like would you do me a favor and do commentaries i did like the first 15 shows i did for them for free i didn't even have a contract i was just doing it for fun i said listen i don't even need any money i said just give my friends tickets yeah so like my friends could watch the fights and i'll go do commentaries no big deal because they weren't making any money yeah they were loot they were
hemorrhaging money and i was my dream like eddie bravo and i would always talk back before zuff had bought the ufc like you know what the ufc needs because we thought it was the greatest sport in the world yeah but no one else did yeah everyone else thought it was like porn yeah like it was like what did john mccain say they're like trying to get this like human [ __ ] fighting yes so like we were like you know what the sport needs the sport needs some crazy billionaire who's a fan to just dump a bunch of money into it and make it so that like everybody could see what we see yeah and just put it out there and that's what happened yeah the fertittas the fritids frank and lorenzo fertitta came along and they literally did exactly what we were saying they were giant fans who did martial arts they practiced martial arts and then they hired dana it was their high school buddy yeah and then they turned it into what it is today but it was literally like a dream come true for me yeah so i just wanted to help yeah so i was willing to do it for free so i did the first 15 shows for for free that's nuts and then it got to be the point that's me oh so cute look at all my hair so then it got to the point where when um it became i was doing a lot of them yeah and i was like look i'm doing this all the time and then they said i think we should start paying you money [Laughter] were you like yeah great i will graciously take that well you know it was they were very generous but it was a it was a weird situation where it was like i'm doing a job but i'm doing a job for free but i've been doing it for free for so long yeah this is the spice says campbell mclaren was born entrepreneur at ufc 17 he spoke to joe rogan about a new program called street legal do you remember this i do he had like some racing show yeah he's putting together camel's always got something going on yeah like that's that's you and him back in the day yeah oh that's hilarious yeah well campbell's the reason why i got hired yeah yeah he's friends with my manager from the comedy club days and uh campbell was involved in this comedy
club that my manager was involved with like way back in the day yeah and then you know they they had a conversation i think a casual car i don't think he was even asking about me they had a conversation like campbell's like i need to get a new uh backstage interviewer where we needed to hire a new guy and uh they were talking and he goes well i think joe's really into ufc yeah he goes you think he would do it was like well let's calm up so they called me up oh my [ __ ] yeah and you're like you're gonna have to fly to the middle of no it was supposed to be albany but then uh new york state cancelled it and then it had a fly to dothan but i mean i got to be there for vitor's debut i got to see randy couture's debut i got to see so many historic tito ortiz's debut guy metzger's debut i got to see so many historical fights mikey burnett when he was in his prime i got to see pat milotic when he was defending his title i mean i feel very honored and blessed privileged yes it was for me it was like god this is incredible to be there and these are like [ __ ] high school auditoriums and [ __ ] that these fights would take place in and there was no rules there was nut shots you could pull hair it was everybody wore shoes you didn't have to have gloves when i started it was bare knuckle that's crazy i saw mark coleman you know mark coleman beat dan severn to become the first ever ufc heavyweight champion that was the first time i did a post-fight interview [ __ ] in my pants talking to the hammer yeah i met him i got i got some pictures with him before i actually sat next to chuck ledell for this fight or fights on saturday oh really yeah but i was so like i didn't know how to feel and maybe you could help me out with this because like two ufc's before i sat right behind him and it was the first time i'd ever seen him before and valentino was fighting lauren murphy and he was just like not happy you know he's like women's fighting is and i was like you're breaking my heart chuck because he said that he was like the whole fight and i was what are you saying not i'm not gonna repeat but i was like you you literally said that to you no he's talking in front of me but
like he's watching the fight and you can just tell he's just you know upset so i don't know how anybody could watch valentina perform and perform against laura murphy which she put on a [ __ ] show clinic yeah and then i sat next to him at the ufc this last time and i think that i was trying to be like you know give him a chance you know because maybe he was just having a bad night that night and i think you know the second time meeting him was more pleasant and i was thinking to myself this is so weird because his generation back when he was starting is just so different from this generation but what's interesting is that you've seen like all the generations you know what i mean you've seen those mark coleman moments those dan severn moments those chocolate elmo ones like all the way up to current day and that's nuts it just also goes to show you how new the sport is but like how much more mainstream it's getting it's getting very mainstream but yeah when i started the difference between the skill level net then versus now is there's not another sport where you can go back to i mean when i started was 97 yeah you there's not another sport where you go back to 97 and then look at the the difference in the caliber of the athletes and it's so night and day yeah what other sport is like that yeah i mean not just what the difference in the caliber of the athletes but the difference in the sport itself yeah like what what's recognized and respected as sport that it's so different yeah it's it's it's infinitely evolved right what are your thoughts on those like uh scoring systems like i think in kansas city where it's like round by round they give the live scoring they show the lifestyle i think that's i think they should do that you do yeah i think round by round is the best way to go because then you hold the judges accountable how do we get rid of these problems that we're having with these judges i think you need to hire fighters for judges and i know some fighters like ricardo almeida he's done some judging and some other you know um we had frank trigg was in the octagon during this time so he was as a referee
i think that's it you you have to really know martial arts to be a judge yeah you know and then i think it's also very subjective i think there's some very good judges don't get me wrong yes but i think there's some scoring that's just a little [ __ ] one and it's a real problem when you go to regional uh judging yeah so like if you go to a town that's not used to having a ufc and then they have regional judges or regional referees and they [ __ ] up the fights that that does become a problem yeah that becomes a real issue yeah you know like they separate fighters too quickly they stand people up too quickly they don't let people work you know maybe they hear the boos of the crowd and they give into it unlike a guy like herb dean who's not gonna he's gonna judge he's gonna referee that fight based on what he knows to be the right way to referee a fight he's not booze and [ __ ] don't mean nothing to herb dean yeah he knows what he's doing yeah but there's other people that aren't like that and they these people will boo when someone's clinching against a cage kneeing legs and they'll just separate them right away like hey man you got to let them fight yeah like that's i don't think they should be stood up ever me i'm the same i'm with you good i feel like sometimes when they do that i'm like what do you just want to be a part of the show or something let them go like what are you doing you know you're not the star of the show here let the guys fight i know people love baseball but it's so [ __ ] boring yeah and it's boring for hours right you don't you don't you can't let someone be boring for a couple minutes while someone's smushed underneath yeah if someone gets taken down right and someone like dc or someone can hold you down and punch you in the face and and do that for five minutes tough [ __ ] yeah whose fault is that that you can't get up it's your fault if you want to get up you should get up right figure out how to get up and if you can't get up that means this person's doing a better job than you maybe it's not effective enough yeah look we've had people win fights off their back right kevin randleman and boss rooten fought boss rooten was on the bottom yeah and throwing elbows and
punches and they gave him the decision from the bottom yeah you know and a lot of people agree with it because he did more damage landed more strikes well i think that too if you're on your back and you're causing damage or even those attacking submissions like just because you're on your back doesn't mean that you're losing but sometimes to the naked eye they're like oh this guy sucks you know he's on his back and he can't do anything it's like you don't even know what's going on uriah hall knocks someone out from his guard yeah he knocks him out with punches from his guard yeah i forget who he did i even just saw you like kevin holland to do that against uh jacare oh yeah yeah kevin holland fought joaquin buckley he said to him you got a booger in your nose and then he knocked him out afterwards he pointed to his nose yeah he said you got a booger in your nose yeah and then you knocked him out yeah he's a character he's a wild man he really is and he's also like really talented he's got so many different levels to his game i had him on um with uh travis um what's wrong with my brain today i had a mom with travis luther who's his uh his uh coach yeah he's been with him forever sure it was a fun conversation yeah he's working on his wrestling yeah you know that was a flaw that he had in his game but like when it comes to like knockout power the way he knocked jacare up from his back like that it's crazy yeah i took a page out of that book when i fought sarah mcmahon like i was on my back but i was still doing damage you could 100 do damage from your back i think it was um i think dwayne ludwig broke someone's eye socket from his back yeah i think it was eve edwards i think he said eva edwards said that dwayne lowry landed a shot from his back that hurt him like you can land shots from your back it is possible to do now let me ask you in all of the time uh obviously you were doing news radio and then the the fear factor and now you've been doing this but like have you ever fought ever like amateur or had kickboxing fights you had kickboxing fights kickboxing fights and talk with no fights
but not like ever in the octagon there was no no no no no there was no mma when i was fighting i had retired by the time i retired in 89 i'd stopped fighting it's the year i was born yeah fighting didn't come around to like 1993. there was fighting back then but it was only kickboxing and so i was uh massachusetts state taekwondo champion four years in a row and then i won the u.s open and i won a bunch of other tournaments some national tournaments that's all i did from age 15 to 21 was compete did your parents get you in that or you wanted to do it yeah 100 me yeah my parents did not want me fighting yeah they never went to one of my fights oh wow yeah i fought probably like a hundred times i traveled all over the country tournaments then that's all i did i had like a socially stunted high school high school year yeah high school uh time because all the time in high school all i was doing was fighting i was just traveling around the country and competing in tournaments and were you like really popular do people know that you're a fighter i mean i wasn't i was a weirdo you think you know yeah i was a socially awkward weirdo oh yeah i mean i was popular in some ways because it was kind of cute yeah but um and also like people are a little weirded out by the fact that there's this kid that goes to our school that you know travels around and kicks people in the face yeah and i was pretty good i was really good at taekwondo yeah it was it was the first thing that i'd ever done where i realized that i wasn't a loser it's like because i thought i was you know i we moved a lot around a lot when i was a kid my mom got divorced when i was young she separated from my dad and then married my stepdad and we moved to san francisco we lived because he was going to school there we lived there from age seven to 11 and then we i was born in new jersey lived there until seven then san francisco 7-11 then florida 11 to 13. and then boston 13 to 24. so it was like all of this moving and not having friends and and then getting picked on a lot i got bullied you did yeah so i was like i don't like this so i'm like i gotta i
gotta take a martial art i gotta learn how to fight and are you still like in contact or like know the people that you started with a few of them yeah one of my very good friends is a guy named steve graham and i've been friends with him since i was 15. oh wow and he is the guy who talked me to doing stand-up oh really yeah because i would make people laugh because we would all be nervous like we would be on a bus or something like headed to a tournament and everybody'd be nervous and i would be the guy talking [ __ ] i would make everybody laugh because we were all [ __ ] freaking out yeah like because the thing about taekwondo is it's definitely less damage than uh mma or or kickboxing but when people get knocked out it's horrible it's ugly because it's kicks yes kicks to the head yes and so we're all nervous yeah so i would be the one who broke it up and also i needed a lot of attention back then yeah so i was always like demanding attention yeah and so when we got to these tournaments it was uh you know the back room like warming up area was like my stage yeah and i would be just talking [ __ ] and getting everybody getting everybody to laugh and then my friend steve was like you should be a comedian yeah really i'm like listen you think i'm funny because you know me yeah i go think about the things that i'm laughing at like these are horrible things like everybody else is gonna think i'm a [ __ ] [ __ ] yeah that's that reminds me actually because uh you know my friend he's one of my really good friends adam hunter yeah yeah adam greenberg he's hilarious so funny and uh really good comic he just texted me the other day and asked me if i would be willing to do like a five or seven minute set for i don't know i think they were doing something on fight pass where you know they got like shale sun in it oh yeah he just did that he just did that yeah i so when i was growing up i always the three things that i wanted to be rapper boxer and comedian like i remember i remember growing up and be like i want to be either these three things and so i love comedy i'm a massive comedy fan like why don't you
[ __ ] do it i told him i think i i think i will i mean you could totally do it but that was my next question to you like okay you went into comedy like yes how do you you obviously have to write your own jokes right like yeah isn't that the most difficult part like that's gotta be hard it's definitely hard yeah yeah it's hard to have that material and keep coming back with it you know it's also hard to find a premise that interests you like the thing it has to be like is that where you start you start on like you start what your material is gonna be based on what interests you yeah what you think is funny okay because if you don't think it's funny the audience is not going to laugh as much i mean they might laugh because it's good but if you you gotta when when i know that i have a subject that is really gonna work well it's like what i'm interested in yeah like when i start talking about things that like mean a lot to me or that make me laugh or that i think are weird something that makes me pay attention yeah so that's a big part of it because sometimes people just do things that they think are going to work yeah and those are like trades people i feel like more than they're really like an artist like they're just they're just saying a thing they think the audience will laugh at like if they have a nail and they have a hammer and they hit the nail with the hammer they're just doing a job right whereas other people like you go to see some comics it's their personality comes out when they're in their in their performances and in their subjects and then and so you get addicted to like the way they think about things and look at the world yeah so you're obviously funny you're obviously smart and you're really good at talking you can 100 do stand up yeah but you would have to think about things that you think that make you laugh and then realize that it is a long brutal process to become good at comedy right it takes like 10 years right to become like a legit headliner right and it's a long 10 years and you're going to eat [ __ ] and there's going to be hostile crowds and you're going to have days where like you have off training days
yeah you're going to have off show days yeah and i think about that i think about i don't think i could handle that right get some heckler in the crowd and be like let's step outside guy you know you got something to say to me you know like i and then that's the thing too is like the fine line right of like what's offensive and what's funny like i think masks are hilarious but you start talking about masks and people wearing masks and then people are going to get offended because all these people have died and yada yada you know so like so you dance around it yeah just gotta know how to dance around well there's like topics that you can touch and topics that you can't touch and i feel like that's one of a topic that you can't touch but right now i find hilarious but it's not a topic you can't touch there's no topic you can't touch but here's what it's like it's like if you want to fight and you want to punch someone you can't just run up and punch them because they're going to move you got to set it up right you got to set it up it's the same thing with comedy yeah the same thing with comedy and i think every subject can be discussed every subject can be discussed but it's like how do you discuss it like what do you say what is uh what's your take on it what's interesting about your take how do you get that take across in the least amount of words possible but with the clearest impact on people it's complicated it's there's a lot to it yeah but if you love comedy and you enjoy it then you gotta probably already have a sense of how it works yeah it's just like watching fights and you're like god i love fights i wish i could be a fighter yeah well you can yeah but you ain't gonna be great immediately yeah it's a [ __ ] bloody road yeah you gotta take your licks yeah you can do it i guarantee you can do it yeah and that would be a great thing to do along with a podcast yeah but i'm just putting these things in your head because you know there's so many fighters that focus entirely on their career and that's great but until there's no more career yeah and then they're lost and their identity is completely wrapped up in the fact that they're a fighter they retire
and then they come back to fighting because what else they going to do yeah and because it's exciting you know and that was a thing that like chuck did recently right he came back and he fought tito and it's like oh it's so hard to watch you know you don't want to see that yeah love tito yeah i mean i'm sure i would love chuck too i didn't mean to say that but i just i get it you're a girl yeah he wasn't in the girl fighting maybe he was drunk he was i don't know i don't know yeah he didn't look like he was having a good time that night well that's unfortunate some of the best fights i've ever seen in women fights i remember there was a tough enough event in uh las vegas that eddie bravo and i went to back when you know tough enough does those amateur fights yeah my training partner she's fighting on tough enough uh in in march march 4th i think and the first one that was like one of the first women fights that i had ever saw this is before women fights were in the ufc yeah and it was [ __ ] awesome it was a barn burner it wasn't like aaron tetherful remember i do not remember but i know aaron yeah she's awesome yeah um i do not remember who was fighting and there was two young ladies that i don't know what ever happened to them or because this was like 2002 two or three or something like that like extremely chick fighting but we were i remember we were talking afterwards we went to dinner eddie and i were talking like that was the best fight of the night yeah and it's like anybody who thinks that girl fights aren't good yeah that was the best [ __ ] fight tonight when amanda knocked out cyborg that was one of the wildest fights i've ever seen in my life when you beat amanda one of the best fights i've ever seen in my life because what do you want out of fighting like i said you want this moment where it's so exciting that while you're in the middle of it you're going i can't believe this is really happening and that's all you're thinking of all your troubles go away yeah all you're thinking about is oh my god she's gonna win yeah oh my god she's busting her up oh my god she got her down oh my god she's got her back oh my god she tapped
and we were it was wild yeah i mean that's what everybody wants out of the ufc that's what everybody wants out of fighting you want this this moment where someone just rises to the occasion yeah and i've always been a fighter that has been able to rise to the occasion i've always found a way to i'll quote ronda rousey fight above myself in times when the rubber meets the road i mean i can i'll bet on myself every time well that's not above yourself that is yourself that's what you're capable of you just have confidence you just have like there's people that are killers yeah they just have a killer mentality they know how they know they can get [ __ ] done yeah they might be nervous they might be excited they might you know it's a lot yeah but they know they can get [ __ ] done yeah yeah and and i also think that like you said women's fights are some of the best fights ever yeah yeah and i think that that's just a credit to women and how incredible women are and what they can do you know like we're givers of life we we give life like no doubt about that we're strong we're so strong that's the most incredible thing you're making people inside your body like that is the most bananas thing in the world isn't it weird i don't feel like it gets enough credit it doesn't when you think about your life pre-mother and then post mother how much how different are you it's extremely different because i was a weirdo back before i had a kid in the sense that like they'd be like well how important is this to you and i'd be like i'm a mama bear and i got to protect my cub and my cubs got to eat but like i didn't have a kid and they'd be like what are you talking about like it doesn't make any sense you know and i'm like well you know what i mean i'm going to defend as if i did have a kid you know and as if i did have to defend for my cub now that i'm actually a mom like it's it puts a whole nother level of meaning on top of it and i feel like i have more to fight for now like yeah my kid's a star and i need to make sure that she has the best life possible and everything that she could ever dream and
desire you know and so i want to make sure now i'm actually quite literally the mama bear and making sure that you know i do everything to defend my my real cub so it's just it's a whole different element now what is it like because your your daughter was in the crowd when you fought is that the first time she seen you fight no no she came with me when i so i had i gave a birth i had my baby and then i took a fight on two weeks notice against nico montano and she was with me the entire time wow and she was just a little baby she stepped on the scale with me and she was there how how old was she she was like a year and some change wow so you're there's a recovery post giving birth yes what was that like how long was that i have to shout out jennifer mercier uh from saint charles jennifer mercier changed my life um she is uh she's like a she's a doctor she's got to pee her phd and she has invented this type of therapy it's called mercier therapy and first and foremost what she does is women spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on ivf treatments or all sorts of different ways in order to conceive and give give childbirth or have kids jennifer her method is alternative to say before you do that just hear me out and let me try to work on you and then if i can't get you pregnant then go ahead and spend your you know tens of thousands of dollars getting pregnant she manipulates the the body so that your body can be ready to receive and so that you can get pregnant she has an astronaut she has a very high rate of getting women pregnant so basically she's a miracle worker what does she do she works on your body so that you ca if you're wanting to have children she works on your body so that you can uh get pregnant and she gets when she gets women pregnant but she also heals women from pregnancies and um but but what is the method it's like this massage type of like deep type of massage um and she also teaches workshops she also massage yes massage can help you get pregnant yes really but i don't know how she does like i said she's a miracle she's got these techniques and she she works on you and she works on it hurts he's like you're
getting your pelvic area worked on as it puts you out to sleep it's like very very intensive type of massage it's different than like a regular body massage but she has a very high rate of getting women pregnant how did she figure that out um i would say her own um experience she has endometriosis she couldn't get pregnant and she would manipulate and massage and have her you know husband ex-husband now um manipulate and work on her and then she realized that there wasn't this type of therapy and then and she was a midwife too for a long time and then she just kind of geared it into this you know treatment plan that she does and she gets women pregnant from all over the world people come in from ireland from denmark they come from all over the world to get pregnant by her um so yeah jennifer mercier but what i heard was one of my friends in california she's a chiropractor she was like this girl's on a podcast she's in the chicagoland area you should check her out and it was jennifer so i had a traumatic birthing experience you know especially being an alpha female i was like i'm ready to give birth i'm ready to you know give birth naturally i'm not going to take the shot like i was ready to to do that my right of passage as a mother's to give birth you know um and then i found out that i was like 42 weeks baby hadn't dropped you're not giving birth naturally you have to get this baby out right now or it's emergency c-section whoa and so they took the baby out they you know take they cut you open they rip out your guts they throw it back in so you have given your baby until you have a nice day most women just go on and have a nice day and then when they laugh they pee their pants a little bit what jennifer does is she helps your body recover so that your organs are no longer fused together the blood flow can go through again and then you can get back into normal life your abs can heal back together and everything like that so i luckily found her through one of my chiropractor friends brittany and i went and she worked on me she worked
on me as a trade and i was able to get back to fighting because of the the healing work that she she was doing on me because if you don't get this work done your abs don't heal the same way together you never you're never quite the same because your organs are fused together there's no blood flow going through there fused together why are they fused together like i feel like um they get stuck you know because there's not that it's almost like cartilage you know what i mean like like when you get a scar or something like that okay so scarring yes the scarring because they have to cut you open and move everything around like that yes yeah that's got to be brutal what is it like after a c-section when you got this like you're opened up and you got this giant scar down there yeah it i felt in a sense depressed because i was like i didn't get to give birth the way that i wanted to but they're like having a c-section is still giving birth and so i was like but in that moment i'm literally like i'm never fighting again you know what i mean like because it cut you open yeah like i wasn't expecting it i absolutely didn't think that was gonna happen i got gutted like a fish and then there's have a nice day you know and so i was like yeah there's no way i'm never fighting again i just didn't think it was possible but jenny helped me realize again having great doctors and great people around you giving me that confidence that i would absolutely be back how long did it take before you could train again after that i mean at least like i want to say like 12 maybe 10 to 12 weeks oh wow i think it's like typical six weeks after a c-section but i don't think i was comfortable training until i felt like absolutely better and i'll also say that shoot i lost my train of thought oh yeah people want to rush to get back to fighting right away after having a kid i didn't feel that sense of rush i didn't feel like i got to fight right away you know i was like i just had a baby i want to enjoy her you know what i mean so there was no rush for me to get back into the gym and
train right away because i just wanted to enjoy my baby you know they're only so small for such a short amount of time do you get extra motivation knowing that she's watching you yes i mean i see her she comes she's been literally and since i went to the gym after having her she's been in a car seat as a tiny little baby up until now four years old coming to every single training session that i have you know like we're a package deal and since i moved to chicago i don't have my parents i don't have anybody family or sisters anybody that can watch my kid like everywhere you go i go champ and so she goes with me everywhere i go we're a package deal and she has seen me train every single day so she'll hang out on the cage and she'll start cheering for me you know and i can hear her and she's excited and and she she knows you know she knows what's up and so yes absolutely i'm like my baby's out there like that's gotta be wild to be a four-year-old and your mom is the champion of the world i know i kind of want to know how she feels but like when somebody comes to ask for a picture it's like forget it like you might as well just you know just take the picture with her because she is not going to let me take the picture on my own she'll be like i want the picture i want the picture you know and she's four but she's like 14. like she's advanced i feel like and she's the type of person where it's like say the pledge of allegiance it'll be a whole crowd full of people she'll tell you the pledge of allegiance at the top of her lungs she'll sing you know you are my sunshine or you know she's just very outgoing very sociable she's a little social butterfly do you think she's going to want to do martial arts um so she has no choice uh her dad owns a jiu jitsu gym and so she trains um and it's hard the attention span of a little kid is very difficult so i know that sometimes he has a hard time reining her in she can be more of a distraction than than a help on the mat as far as a little training partner goes she's only four but she absolutely has to learn how to defend herself she's got to know jiu-jitsu yes um with that being said they ask me oh you what are you gonna do when she wants to fight and i'm like
she's not she's absolutely not gonna fight because oh we're gonna play this back later well that's the thing too like listen take it from me i've dislocated both my elbows i've broken every finger and thumb that you can think of i've torn both my knees out like i've done every horrible thing it's a fighter's life is very difficult it's hard it's hard on your body and do i want that for my kid and her to have to experience that no no but if she were to come to me and be passionate and dedicated and you know showing me that she's disciplined and wanting to do it for real and that's what her heart truly desires then of course i'm not gonna say no i'm gonna back her as long as she's happy she can do whatever she wants i want her to be happy so as long as she's happy whatever that is and brings her happiness all support but is that the life that i want for my kid nah absolutely not well nobody wants that life for their kid but nobody wants their kid to be pissed that you didn't let them live that life too yeah but then she's gonna have to show me something that she wants that she wants it yeah yeah and i don't want her to feel like there's any sort of you know competition or that she has to do it to make me proud or anything like that i just in my opinion what do i want her to do especially because i see her singing like when i ask her to sing in front of other people she'll sing i'm like dude i'm pretty sure this is like how ariana grande got her start right there's little videos of her as a little baby like singing songs like this is my little baby like i think she could be i think she's a star i do i'm like this girl's gonna be in movies in hollywood and like she's gonna be a movie star like she's not gonna be a fighter she's gonna be something better than that who knows would you say better than that but i don't think there's a better than that yeah i don't not to say not to discredit fighting or fighters i'm fighting is amazing and i'm very happy and fortunate and blessed to do what i do but i mean better in a sense where you're not gonna have to you know go take punches to the face to make some good money that's yeah but the thing is it's like the reward right it's not just your reward that
you've gotten me you could speak to this better than i could but i think the your reward that you get from being who you are now is not just money but it's also like holy [ __ ] look what you did like you could do anything yeah now that you beat amanda like you can't nobody could tell you that you can't do something right you've you've accomplished something that's spectacular and that they said was impossible yeah that's you could do anything yeah if you decided to go do something else you could do that too yeah like no you you've already have the the mental fortitude yeah to get through that and it's also the entertainment value there's no higher entertainment value in terms of like the amount of joy that you gave the world yeah that night that moment when you beat amanda and she tapped and you went crazy and everyone went crazy and that is a that very few human beings ever affect people that way yeah especially large numbers of people that are watching you yeah it's such a small group of people that get that window in life where they they break through with some performance some thing they did some effort some accomplishment that they achieved that literally changes everyone's life who watched it yeah and that that's why fighting gets me excited because i just i just want to go do it again you know what i mean i just want to go do it again and and i i am so blessed and fortunate that i get to live this life and give these people this inspiration and this hope and this realization that hey hey look at me i'm a mom i'm a single mom i'm i'm i'm doing it you know if i can do it you can do it you know i'm not saying that you can go be a world champion and be a fighter all of a sudden overnight no i've been grinding at this for 13 years this isn't something that just happened overnight but i've been putting in my time i've been putting in my licks and you know this is something that is i deserve every little bit of success that i have now been able to attain because i've been putting in my time and so that
feels really great no one can ever take that away from me and to be that voice of hope and inspiration is an honor and it makes me excited about fighting it makes me that's what makes me passionate about finance makes me want to do it all over again i can't wait to do it all over again um but if she could experience that in a different facet without brain damage yeah exactly then that would make me very happy too yeah well that's awesome but whatever makes her happy yeah well listen uh congratulations on everything what you did like realistically changed the face of women's fighting forever really did yeah because you you changed the landscape yeah you know you're the you're the new champion of the world thank you this is wild yeah it is so wild and i can't wait to see a fight again and whether it's with amanda or valentina or whoever i can't wait to see a fight again thank you thanks for being here yeah thank you tell everybody uh how to get a hold of you on social media what your accounts are yes uh at venezuelan vixen is uh my handle on instagram and on twitter you can find my name juliana the venezuelan vixen pena on facebook i do have a tick tock i don't know how to use it i don't have anything posted up there um uh yeah so i have a link in bio you can buy uh my shirts you can buy designs for sport which is what i would definitely suggest um you can buy a cameo i'll sing you happy birthday um and that's i think that's all i got up there right now but uh my my shirt it says too fast too sexy too no too fast too strong too sexy too pena and then on the front it says the penis power so i love that shirt i think it's great my little knock-off nike version of my shirt so i love it beautiful yes well thank you very much thank you thank you and here appreciate you all right bye everybody [Applause] [Music] you