Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Ronda Rousey Talks 'Expecting the Unexpected,' UFC Career; Stardom, Motherhood + More

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INTERVIEW: Ronda Rousey Talks 'Expecting the Unexpected,' UFC Career; Stardom, Motherhood + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Don't every day up waiting clicks up the breakfast club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You don't finish for y'all dumb.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the world most dangerous morning to show to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club. Charlamagne and God, DJ Mby and Jess aren't
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in today, but Lauren Lorossa is here, and we got
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a special guest, a legend.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Who made the MMA mainstream. Mitch ron de Rowsey is here.
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Good morning. How you feeling fantastic?
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: I mean it's still bitter earlier, but you know you
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: don't get up this early. I mean, my kids get
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: me up this early. I don't get up this early.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm on my own. But I haven't had a choice
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: in a long time.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, But you got a comic book, got a graphic
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: novel called Expecting the Unexpected.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: What made you want to step into the comic book world?
• 0:38
  Speaker 5: Uh?
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: You know what? I It wasn't like a conscious decision.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: It was more of like I really wanted to be
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: able to tell the story, and I just kind of
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: became obsessed with it. And once I wrote the first
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: draft of it, and then like an eleven hour thumb typing,
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: I like in my notes, binge, I just became obsessed
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: with fining the story and getting it out there, and
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: once the idea of making into a graphic novel came up,
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: it was like I couldn't stop and a little bit
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: of an obsessive personality when it comes to like pursuing
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: goals and here we are and there's a physical copy,
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: right yere.
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: I feel like people have always looked at you and
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: everything that you've done is kind of like a mythical
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: like story, even your name. It's like if you've never
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: even like watched I fight, you know, Ronda Browsey, what
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: have been moments for you in your career where you're like,
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: oh wow, like this is happening and this is actually happening.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: Oh god. Well, I think when I first won the
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: UFC title, I was like it was one of those
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: moments where like, don't quote that video from that kid
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: that just woke up from dental surgery and I had
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: to do it, you know. So that was one of
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: those it's like this is real life, you know. Joe
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: Rogan's like, what's your impression, I'm like, I need to
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: quote the dentist kid, and then that was That was
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: one of them. But there's been quite a few or
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: have been like I just feel like I'm just watching
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: somebody else's experience. It's making me believe in like simulation
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: theory kind of, you know, like, Ooh, if I got
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: to pick anyone's lifetime to live, I'm gonna pick the
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Ronda Rousei lifetime. I'm gonna live that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Jesus Seid gosh. But so you would, you would pick
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: it over and over what you're saying.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I like the life I've lived is
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: so interesting. I'm like, man, I feel like if I
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: had to like select someone's lifetime to live, I'm like, oh,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I want to pick the Ronda Rousei lifetime, you know,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: and try and live that because it's been so ridiculous.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: I don't know, Like sometimes I can't even believe it's happening.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: You were the first woman to sign with the UFC, right,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you put a woman's mma on the map. When you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: look back, what do you think your real legacy is
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: it the winds au the walls you broke down.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: I think it's giving women in combat sports a career,
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: and that didn't exist before. You know, I won an
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Olympic medal and came home and was like, maybe I'll
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: be a cocktail waitress. You know, there was nothing you
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: need do?
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: And so now it's really leaked over not just from MMA,
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: but into you know, boxing and pro wrestling, that women
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: are really making like you know, record breaking paydays and
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, and actually able to make a living
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: in career from combat sports, which I feel like, you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: I had a big part of that.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I never thought about that.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I mean I read, you know, Don Staley's book Uncommon Favor,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and it was kind of a similar story. You have
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: this amazing career in college, you go off to the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Olympics and you win a medal, but then it's just
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like it's like you come home and it's like, Okay,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: what am I supposed to do? Now I've done everything
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: that they told me I was supposed to do, But
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: then what's the next phase of my life?
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  Speaker 3: Looked like it's got to be like a mind fuck
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: for women, right.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: I mean for everybody. It's like you call it like
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: post Olympic depression, and that you just spend your whole
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: life going after this one goal and you tell yourself,
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: if I achieved this one thing, it'll make me so
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: happy that that happiness will leak over into the rest
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: of my life and I'll just be happy forever because
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: I did this one thing. I mean, how could you
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: not be you want in the Olympics or whatever. And
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: then you go and achieve that goal and you're happy
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: for a little bit, and then you know, you return
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: to the rest of your life and you realize that
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: your happiness isn't a collection of accomplishments. It's a lifestyle.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: And you know a lot of times that what you
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: build up that accomplishment to be and what it will
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: do for you is, you know, not not exactly what
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: you expected.
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: But is that is there a hard balance for you
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: of every moment is like, oh my god, I got
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: to do this so well because it may not happen
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: again because you've you've been the first doing so much
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: within this space, is there like a pressure of you
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: feel like, Okay, things are just happening as they should,
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: but also what if I don't get this chance again?
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: What if I don't get this opportunity to again because
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: they weren't they weren't out there in the beginning.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, that that pressure I think exists all
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: the time. And it's not just that like in one
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: thing that you do, but if you fail once, then
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: everything that you've accomplished before that really, you know, gets
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: wiped wiped away. It means nothing. My mom had a
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: saying that you're only as good is your last fight.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: And you know what I mean, like, what have you
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: done lately? Kind of a thing. And yeah, it's I
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: think every every one time that you come to that
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: that situation, those high pressure situations, it's it doesn't get
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: any less or any easier, but I guess you get
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: more more confident in your ability to deal with it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: I used to get really scared of my own nerves,
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: you know, and like when my heart would beat really
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: fast or something about like a little kid and I
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: was about to have like a fight or match or something,
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: and I would get like, oh, what if I get
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: tired because I've been nervous for so long, my heart's
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: been beating for so long, And I would get nervous
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: about the fact that I was nervous. And then eventually
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: you get in that situation and you succeed enough times
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: that you realize, Okay, this is what happens to my
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: body before I do something great, and my heart could
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: beat like this all day long and I'll still be
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: able to have enough, you know, and endurance to keep going.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: And so I started thinking of like that feeling and
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: that fear is kind of not something to be scared of,
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: but like it's more of like the revving of my engine,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: you know, before before I take off.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I've heard you speak about, you know, after losses. You
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: spoke about like being in a doc mental space and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: having like I guess, an identity crisis. What do those
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: moments teach you about your self worth beyond just winning
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and losing.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think when I lost, it wasn't just oh,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: I lost a fight, you know, because people will be like, oh,
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: how could you feel get that depressed about just losing
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: a fight? It's not the big of a deal. It
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: was like, of course, it's not the big of a
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: deal to you because you've never been in that situation.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: But to me, it was more of like I knew
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  Speaker 4: my fighting career was over, and yeah, I knew because
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: I'd been dealing with I just had like a lot
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: of like neurological issues that I've been dealing with that
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  Speaker 4: I hadn't been able to tell anyone about. Because you're
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: the chance you can't let anyone know that you have
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: any weakness, you know, if anything, like people thinking I
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: haven't a weakness that like that does a lot of
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: the work for me, you know, upfront, and so kind
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: of portraying that was really important and not letting anyone
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: know what was what was going on with me. So
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: when it finally cut up to me, I like I
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: knew that it was over, and I didn't really want
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: to own, you know, accept it. And I was like
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: that kind of identity crisis. If I'm not a fighter,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: who am I? And you're so like especially if you're
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: into your expertise and you're you're so obsessed with it
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: for so long and you just become that fraction of
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: your personality, you know, and you forget of who you
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: are outside of it. And then suddenly it was like
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: ripped away from me and I didn't know who I
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: was if I wasn't a fighter and not just a fighter,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: but a champion.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Do you believe elite athletes a condition to suppress vulnerability?
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, you kind of have to, especially like
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: a like a contact sport, but I think anybody that
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: is in a high pressure situation and that's that just
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: comes with it.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: But you gotta think.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: When you walk in that that ring, there's a chance
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you could lose, right like it.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's why you're in there wrestling, you know,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: And that's that's part of it. That's like part of
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: what I think brings the best out of me. You know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: some people, they they they they do better in low
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: pressure situations. You know, they try to make it not
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: such a big deal, and that's when they're their best,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: when they can really relax like that. And I just
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: realized I'm the kind of person that needs that that pressure.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: You know. I fight above myself under under pressure. So
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: it's not exactly enjoyable, but it brings the best out
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: of me.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a present vulner Suppressing vulnerability eventually
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: breaks you down because I'm a person that deals with
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: like really bad anxiety, right like, I'm going in there
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: before for a long, long, long time. But I think
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that Ryan Holliday, well, I love I love soul SYSM.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: He you know, you got to remember, like one day
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you're going to die, right like, and that gives you
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: just the sense of freedom knowing that you wake up
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in the every day and just live your best because
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: anything could happen, it could potentially be your last day.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I would feel like if you're going to going through
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the ring all the time thinking that you you know,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: you're suppressing your vulnerability, eventually it could just break you
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: down mentally.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Outside the ring.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: I think if you don't take any time away from it,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: and if it's constant and NonStop, and I think that's
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: one of the one of the things that I didn't
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: do it was I didn't take any time away. And
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: you know, there's if you're holding up basically the whole
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: company at that point, you know, and I like took
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: a blood oath to Dana, like you sign me and
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: I will be your fucking girl and anything that you need.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I can swear in here, but
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: it gets to a point where if you're trying to
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: be everything to everyone, you're not going to have much
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: much left for yourself. And you're in that in mind
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: space of like, oh, I want to be a champion,
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: and you can't admit any weakness and you can't ever
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: speak up and say, like, you know what, I need
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: a rest, you know, I need a moment to not
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: to not be on all the time. And it's uh,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's kind of hard, like you can't
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: really be in a place where you have no weakness,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: you know, to admit yourself that you have no weaknesses,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: and then at the same time be like, yeah, I
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: need a break badest a woman on the planet needs
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: to fucking sit.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: But what do you do in those breaks?
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: So, like you said, you you talked about not knowing
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: who you were if you know, your career was taken
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: away from you, and having to discover that who are
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: you outside of this?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And what do you do when you need those breaks?
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: I think you need to Well, what I found was
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: I had to find something else outside of that that
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: you know, I could be passionate about and find find
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: value in. And that's what brought me into pro wrestling
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: and the WWE, and that's what, you know, brought me
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: into writing comics and stuff like that and being a
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: writer and seeing things that, like, you know, a lot
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: of people, all they wanted to see me do is
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: hurt other people, you know, and that's where they see
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: that My value is in, you know, is in fighting people.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: And and I had to try and look for something
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: in myself that other people weren't weren't asking for. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: that's kind of what this whole journey of becoming, you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: a writer has been of, Like I nobody asked me
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: to do a comic. Nobody was expecting me to do
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: a comic. No one's expecting me to make a good comic.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: But it was something that I just kind of became
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: obsessed with and it mattered to me, and I willed
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: it into reality and I'm so so proud of it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: And yeah, might not be like the it might not
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: be winning the Nobel Prize in Literature or anything like that,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: but it really means a lot to me personally, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: I think that's something that I needed to find outside
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: of I don't know, just kind of like that achievement
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: hunting kind of mentality of like I'm not trying to
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: achieve something to convince myself for everyone else how awesome
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: I am. I won't trying to achieve something because I
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: find it personally fulfilling to me, which is a huge pivot.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Do you see the comic book as an evolution or escape?
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: Ooh, I think it is an escape in a way.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: You know, I think a lot of time you say
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: that you deal with like a lot of anxiety and stuff.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: I had had a lot of problems with like intruding,
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: intrusive thoughts and stuff like that, and not being able
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: to direct where my own my own thoughts would go.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: And so whenever I found myself going down like kind
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: of like a destructive like path with whatever I was
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: thinking about, I would purposefully direct my mind back to
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: it what I was doing creatively, you know, when writing
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: the story or something like that. And so if I
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: started like picking at myself mentally, you know what I mean,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: like just picking out your own scabs of your brain
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: and being like, you know, what's not that like slap
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: my own hand and be like, Okay, what's going on
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: your story? How can you make this better? How can
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: I make this line of dialogue land better? How can
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: what's not working in this part? And so this, this
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: comic was kind of my way to kind of take
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: all of that destructive mental energy and put it towards
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: something that that is creative.
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: I noticed on the cover of the book She's with Child,
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: which I think is a great play on the baddest
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: woman on the planet, because it's like, you know, we
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: see you in the ring, but also like you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: women talk about the superpower that you get when you.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: Become a mom.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: So talk about choosing to have you Know that as
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: the cover art for the comic.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: Well, I guess like how this started. It was strange. Well,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: it was the go home before WrestleMania, where I was
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: meant I was said to be the first ever woman's
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: main event with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair and in
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: true w W design, I mean fashion, it was about
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: like seven o'clock. The doors had already opened in the
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: arena and Vince had torn apart the whole script of
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: the day and we didn't know what the hell we
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: were going to do, and we were about to be
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: out in the arena, yeah, for the last show before WrestleMania.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: I saw it's the go home for WrestleMania, but the
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: mash of WrestleMania we put together the night before, they're
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: not that still, not that planning that much. So I
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: was kind of like freaking out and Paul Hayman pulled
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: me aside, and I think he was just trying to
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: like get me to stop being less nervous and thinking
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: about something else, and he was saying, what kind of
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: movie do you want to start in? I'm like, what
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: do you what? And he was like, what kind of
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: movie would you want to start in? And I never
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: thought about that because I'd been a little spoiled bratt
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: waiting for someone just to hand me my green light
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: green project, already ready to go, and I didn't realize
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: until that moment, like I don't know, what is the
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: role that I could play better than anybody else could.
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: And I'm not Meryl Streep. I don't have a huge range,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: but a very narrow range I can. I can hit
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: like a bullet, you know what I mean. So I
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: was thinking, Okay, what would be I've always wanted to do,
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: like a martial arts film, and what would be a
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: character only I could do? And I was thinking that,
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: like my favorite martial arts films are usually like going
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: from point A to point B, like the Raid, You're
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: going from the bottom of the building at the top
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: of the building. And so I was like, Okay, well,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: maybe the chick is pregnant and she you know, everyone's
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: trying to kill her. So she's trying to get rid
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: of the baby because it's not safe, and she has
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: to fight her way to the abortion clinic and by
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: the time she gets there, she's you know, had all
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: these like you know, close calls with the baby on
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: the way that by the time she gets there, you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: like she's gone through this, this whole journey of whether
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: she wants to become a mother or not, and she
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: kind of like has.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: To find it before you even get to the clinic.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so all of the closet calls making her realize,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: you know, how much she wants to keep it. And
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: I guess it was kind of confronting my own insecurity
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: is about becoming a mom and bringing a baby into
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: a hostile world and thinking like am I capable of
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: raising a person and keeping them safe in this kind
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: of world? And so and there's so many like women
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: that like get pregnant and then not only don't have
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: anyone to help, they just don't have anyone to help them.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: And it's really scary and no one really thinks about
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: that journey from when you find out to you're pregnant
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: to when you decide to go in to be a mom.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: And so this is kind of like her journey going
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: through that. Well, you know, everyone's trying to kill her.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: So basically it's like you know, like when die Hard
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: came out like everything was die Hard and it was
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: like die Hard on a boat, die Hard on a bus.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: It was like everything else. So this is like john Wick,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: John Wick on the way to the abortion clinic. But
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: you know, it's also a romantic comedy. So it's like,
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: I like to say, it's like john Wick Wes knocked up.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: That's so interesting because you're a fighter, right, So, but
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you didn't feel like you were a natural protector.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: Uh. I mean, I feel like I'm a natural protector.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: But I'll have my own insecurities of like, you know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: am I good enough to be somebody's mom, because that's like,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's a huge task and a huge
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: role to have in somebody's life. I mean, think about
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: how influential your mother has been on you. And my
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: mom is you know, she's she's a legend, like my mom.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: She got a perfect score on the SATs at sixteen,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: graduated college at nineteen. She was working as a single
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: mother engineer in the eighties while she was getting her
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: PhD and won the world championships in judo all at
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: the same time. Like yeah, and I'm like I only
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: got my ged Oh man, I don't know if I
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: could do this, and yeah, she's just like this the
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: super super mom, and I I don't know. I don't
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: know if I had on my own insecurities, if if
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: I could take up that mantle or not, And so
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know. This is like a funny kind of
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: an ex floration of all of that. And obviously it's
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: like my husband is in it and everything, and yeah
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: it's I still am writing it. I'm still obsessed with it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: I've already written a sequel to it. Wow, I can't stop.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: And no one's asking no one's asked me to do it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: You know. It's the kind of thing like after I
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: put my babies down, I'll set up and keep writing
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: and just thinking about it all the time. And this
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: is like, I don't know, this is like my baby
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: and something that I just comes entirely from me and
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: hasn't been demanded from anybody else, but hopefully other people
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: with demand more.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: You see it when you think about people's well, superheroes
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: origin stories, right, they either come from like pain, power
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: or purpose?
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, which one best describes your personal journey?
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: My personal journey, Oh god, I guess it is started
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: out his pain and then became power and then morphed
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: into purpose. I think I had my own phases with it,
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: but yeah, I think it started as you know, I
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: lost my dad really young and I just needed an outlet,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: and fighting was well, judo is what I started with,
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: and that that really became a great way to be
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: able to vent all of everything that I couldn't say.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: I also had a speech disorder growing up. I couldn't
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: really speak, and so it was just a great way
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: to communicate and it was everything that I needed.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: You remember the first time you had that, I had to.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: Defend myself, like in an actual confrontation.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: What does your first fight period?
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: Oh God, some kid like grabbed me by the throat,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: I like tossed him onto the ground, but like asphalt
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: on the back of his head. Yeah. And then then
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: the bell rung, so we all had to go to class.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Wage was this This was like great.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Sixth grade And and then the kid was so embarrassed
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: that I guess he was like bleeding down the back
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: of his head and didn't say anything. And then the
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: teacher found out that he was bleeding on the back
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: of his head, and yeah, then it all came out
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: then around me on the back of my head and
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: then I had to do community service for a week.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: I never got away with a fight. I've never gotten
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: away with a fight. Everyone always has his stories about
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah I got this fight, this is and that,
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Like how are people getting away with fights? I've never
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: ever gotten nowadays?
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: With this phone got their phones out?
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know what did that give.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You a rep back?
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Dan?
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Though? Like did people see it that they were like,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: oh shit, ron To just slam the ship? I just kid.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I mean kind of. I was like really muscular, it's
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: like you know, at that age. But it was the
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: kind of thing I got teased about a lot, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: so I was always like trying to cover it up
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: with like baggy clothing and and things like that. But
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: it was like a thing yeah, like oh yeah, Rondo's
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: fucking Ronda's jack or ron ron was really strong or
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: something like that. But it was kind of like something
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: I got teased for more.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: But would you embrace it?
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: When did I embrace it? Oh god? I think in
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: my mid twenties when I realized I was sexy. Wait
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: a minute, I look great. Oh yeah, it was kind
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: of about that. I think it was when I was
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: switching over from Judo into MMA, and I had I
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: knew that there was a window there, but I had
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: to play up the you know, the sex appeal to
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: be able to bring people to look at the value
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: I think that there was in women's fighting. And so
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I had to kind of step up and be that
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: person and embody that that confidence, and I kind of
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: had to fake it until until I made it. And
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: that was basically it. You know, you had to pretend
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: to sleep before you get to sleep. So I was like, whatever,
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna try and dress up. And see I used
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: to get like so self conscious about even putting makeup on,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: even trying and or like trying to dress up or
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: anything like that. And I just kind of like bit
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: the bullet and put myself out there. And then I
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: just actually started to be like, well, you know what,
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: I actually I'm really happy with how I look and
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: and things like that, and and everything kind of came
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: from that.
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: I saw Dana White say somewhere recently because you know,
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: fans want you to come back, and he was asked
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: about it, and he was talking about how how good
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: you look right now on like how ripped you are
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: right now and people see you posting these videos on
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: your Instagram and all things, So what is there, Like,
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: what's happening? Are we going to see happening return somewhere
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: because these videos you're posting, it'd be like, Oh, just
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: having lunch with my friend and you're like in the ring,
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: like it's so casual in the caption.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well I have I have a cage in my garage.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: It's not like I went anywhere. I really did like
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: mosey on out there and like that's how you post it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: I'm like this video, yeah, the one where your baby
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: was sitting and watching you. I thought that was so
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: cute too. It's really awesome that like I get to
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: be like a kind of a spoiled brat now of
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: like I just want to build a cage in my
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: backyard and bring my friends over and do some karate,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: you know, and yeah, I'm just having fun with it again.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: And it got to a point where I feel like
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: it kind of got hijacked from me and I was
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: fighting and training for for reasons other than my own.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: And I think it's having my last baby. It just
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: being pregnant is it's fucking tough, you know. I literally
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: it felt like I was like handicapped just compared to
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: being finally tuned athletic machine. Right, you know, I feel
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: like I can do anything to suddenly like if I
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: did a forward role, I think I would throw my
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: back out. And so that's kind of where it just started,
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: of like I just wanted to get that my bodily
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: identity back from just being a vessel for creating another person. Yeah,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: and just get that freedom of movement back. And so
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: then yeah, I started training in MMA again because I
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: feel like when I kind of lost that identity as
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: being a fighter, it I think it like broke my
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: heart too much to be anywhere near it because I
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: love it so much. And so I kind of went
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: to the extreme of like I don't want to train
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: on and want to do anything at all. And and
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: actually was a friend of mine who with one of
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: my coaches, who he was like, oh, well, I really
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: want to give my black belt in judo, can you
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: like help me get my black belt? And I'm like
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: all right, And so I had a couple of mats
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: in my garage, so you'd come over, I'd show them
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: some judo. And then then I started like getting like
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: enjoying it. You know again. And then you know he
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: does like wrestling in jiu jitsu and stuff, so like, oh,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: you know, let's let's roll around a little bit. Let's
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: do that. And then my strength conditioning coach had been coming,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: you know, throughout the years, and like, why don't you
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: hold some paddles for me and hit some mits and
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: stuff like that. And then so it just kind of
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: came from a place of just joy and I just
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: want to do it just because I enjoy it instead
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: of this is what I feel obligated to do or
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: you know, this is what I'm being coerced to be
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: doing for one reason or another and so and and
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: it's what my body really wants, you know, It's what
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: I've been training to do my whole life. And I
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: just feel healthier and better and I want to train again.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: It makes me happy. And it it's really funny that
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: like I'm training and everyone's like, so what are you
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: what are you training for? What are you doing? And
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: I'm like, for my own joy? Is that is that bad?
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: They see you training, but they automatically think you want
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: to come back?
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, i mean they're like, well, you look so good.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: I'm like, well, because I'm the greatest ever, Like, of course,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: it is what I This is what happens when I train.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: You know, I look great. Sorry, Like I don't have
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: to like have a plan for world domination in mind,
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: but you know, Mike Tyson coming back and being the
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: biggest fight of last year, it just kind of proves
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: that I don't think anyone's ever really done.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It's weird though, right, Like do you think the public
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: is addicted to watching people so called for? Because I
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: mean the reality of situation is, you only lost two fights,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: but the media made it seem like it was just
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: completely over, like you could never win again. Like did
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you think you think you let the media get to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you more than anything?
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Uh? No, it was more of like what I was
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: dealing with personally and physically. I'd had uh so many
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: can Hians since I was a kid, and they were
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: getting progressively worse and worse, and I was getting concussion
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: symptoms easier and easier, and it got to the point where,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: like any kind of impact at all, I was basically
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: like losing my vision.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: And I actually recently got some really great news about
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: that because Dana had me. You want to be part
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: of like this long term fighter study they're doing for
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: like neurological, you know everything. And so he sent me
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: to the Cleveland Clinic to get checked out, and the
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: doctor there he was like the first person to actually
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: give me good news because yeah, because a lot of
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: times it's just like neurologically, you're like, oh, well, you're
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: just going to deteriorate forever and it's just going to
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: get worse and worse and there's nothing you can do
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: about it. That's just what they always told you. And
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: he he said that I used to get migraines as
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: a kid, and he told me that people that get
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: migraines for some reason, it's easier for them to get concussions.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: And what he thinks is happening is the more concussions
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: I got, the easier it was for an impact to
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: set off a migraine. And he thinks that because my
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: brain looks better than it should. And so he thinks,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: what's happening is I haven't had as many concussions as
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: I think, and that a lot of times when I'm
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: getting hit, I'm not experiencing concussion symptoms. It's migraine symptoms.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: So he says, because you can have a migraine without
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: a headache. So what's happening is I get hit and
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: then I lose a big chunk of my vision. Basically,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: it's like I can't see and when I lose my
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: death perception and my ability to track moving objects or
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: like think quickly. So I'm like, oh, I'm knocked out.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: I'm out of my feet. He's like, because you're not
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: stumbling around. He's like, I don't think it's a concussion.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: I think it's what's happening is you're geting a and
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: so and so it's got to the point where, like
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: I I can't fight safely because if I get hit,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: I basically can go blind. But the thing is there's
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: things I can also do about it. So I'm like
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: trying to address it like nutritionally and things like that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: But but yeah, it's it's kind of nuts because I thought.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: I thought, I'm like, okay, well, I'm just gonna get
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: CT any day now, you know. And he was like, yeah,
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: I finally got some good news of like maybe there's
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: something you can do about it. And it's not a
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: you know, a the nail on the coffin of your
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: of being able to be able to fight. So that's
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: actually actually great news. But I don't know what I'm
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: going to do with that.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I would like, what's the point?
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: I don't think it sounds like you kind of are like,
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, not did you have anything to prove, But
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: it sounds like just in case you want to get
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: back into it, you're doing everything to make sure you're
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: safe to do.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, I I'm trying out what they're
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: trying to do, you know, I'm trying to like nutritionally
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: be able to address things and stuff like that. But
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: I also it's like, yeah, what's the point of going
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: out and taking head and packs to see if it
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: like if it works or not right?
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: You know, unless you can find like a YouTuber, like
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: maybe there's a female YouTuber that wants to get it popping.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Like why, how scared were you?
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: Because there were fans that were saying that the retirement
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: was like abrupt. In hearing all this, it's like, I mean, yeah,
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: but how scared were you once you started, like when
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: you felt that loss of vision and you know, all
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: these things are happening, your body is changing.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just it's more. I mean, I don't
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: know if you can go into like scared, because that's
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: kind of not like the headspace that you're in when
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: you're out there. It's just more of like disabled and
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: like trying not to panic and.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: Not even in the moment in the ring though, just
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: like in life of like like I want to be healthy,
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: I want to be okay, and I'm exp into these
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: things I've never experienced before that are making me take
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: a step back. Like what was your personal conversation with
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: yourself about this is not okay?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not okay.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Well, personally, I was more worried about the long term effects,
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: you know, like everyone knows that Ali is the greatest,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: but everyone knows what happened to Muhammad Ali, you know,
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: like I. And that's I think every fighter's fear is
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: you don't know when you've taken one hit too many
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: until you know decades later. And so that was more
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: of what I was worried about than how it was
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: affecting me in the fights itself. It was more of
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to keep fighting if I couldn't keep
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: fighting at the highest level, and when dealing with that,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I didn't know how that would be possible. And I'm
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: also a representative for the whole sport, So like, if
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: I'm not doing well physically, then people would be like, oh,
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: women shouldn't do mma because that'll that's what will happen
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: to you, right, you know, so I have to kind
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: of think about that. Aging gracefully is actually pretty important
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: for the sport because I represent the sport.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: It's just it's just interesting because, like, you know, you
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: even think about somebody like Mike Tyson, he's lost multiple fights. God,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: that's day. Muammad Ali lost multiple fights. You know, somebody
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: like Izzy. We love Izzy, we love all of them,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: but they've lost multiple fights. You lost two fights, So
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: why like why why is it different when they lose
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: multiple fights and still get held as the greatest ever.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But you lose a couple of fights and people like
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: like it's in the world, it's over, she's done, she's finished.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Well, what do you think the difference is.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's true.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: I mean when you decided to walk away after those fights,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: people were talking about this changing the trajectory of your
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: Like those fights single handedly changed the trajectory of your career.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Nobody even took into consideration all the other things that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you're telling us now, yeah, mental issues, it could be
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: physical issues. It's just it was it literally felt like
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: it's over, no longer the bad it someone on the
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: planet done.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: I mean I didn't want to like go out. I
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: don't want people think I was making excuses, you know,
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: So I was just like, what's the point.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like people threw you away? In a sense?
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: I mean I don't know, Like it's not really what
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: I've concerned myself with. I think it like it really
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: taught me to like separate public perception from my self perception,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: which I think is the best thing that I got
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: out of it, you know. And I think that's like
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: a trap that a lot of people fall down, that
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: they're trying to constantly keep that fame at a certain
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: level because they feel like if that goes down, then
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: their self worth goes down. And that's kind of like
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Tommy of like, you know what, actually didn't enjoy being
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: that famous, you know what I mean, like not being
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: able to do normal stuff and go to the grocery
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: store and go to a restaurant or even be in
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: the line in and out drive through. I mean it
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: was crazy for a while. I remember once I was
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: in the in the line for in and out to
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: get you know animal, Yeah, not even in the store,
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: in the car, and someone noticed me in the in
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: the car and like a whole mob flooring around the car,
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: you know, with my kids in there and everything like that.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I couldn't go into a restaurant without everybody
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: standing up and lining up at the table, or go
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: to the grocery store. And I I kind of realized that, like,
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: I don't think that anybody would want to be that
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: famous unless you know, there's something wrong with them. Like
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: I enjoy being able to live a normal life, and
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: I've I entered into that like nostalgia phase where people
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: are like, oh, yeah, I remember you. You know. It's
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: so it's like it's so great to see you again
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: kind of a thing and instead of being like an event,
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: you know, two people and so yeah, I think it
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: kind of made me realize that that that lifestyle actually
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: wasn't really something that I personally wanted. And maybe it's
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: something that like, you know, fan of my ego, but
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: it didn't like, you know, feed my soul kind of
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: a thing. Like I want to just be be with
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: my kids and be with my family, and not have
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: to be like going through the back doors of everywhere
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: for the rest of my life.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So you're definitely not fighting at the UFC, have been
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: at the White House because people.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Think you are on They think that that is the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: next one coming.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: That's so funny. I literally said that I wasn't. Yeah,
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: they're like, that's exactly what you would say if you were.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: But I had a baby like nine months ago. I'm
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: still walking it off.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: You know, did you receive an actual like invite because
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: you never specifically said if you got an invite or not,
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: people as soon you didn't.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Because we open invitation at all times, you know what.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: It's interesting, Like I know Dana White like in everything
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: that he's doing and at the White House and stuff
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: like that, Like a lot of people I remember Elon
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: Musk and people were like destroying the Teslas and all
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: that because they didn't like the fact that he was
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: like so involved with politics and all these things.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: But it hasn't affected Dana White in his business. Why
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: do you think that that is?
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: Probably because the people that he's selling to is a
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: very different group, you know what I mean. UFC fans
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: and Tesla fans or that that Benn diagram is not a.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Stark difference.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, how has motherhood changed your relationship with
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: competition and ego?
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: Oh god, I don't know. I guess I won't know
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: until my kids start competing in something, you know, but
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: my own competition, my own ego, I think. I don't know.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: I think it's a great It's had a great effect
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: on my own ego because I was just getting tired
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: of myself. I don't know if this is like one
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: of my niche one of my random, like deep cut
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: movie references. But remember and Jerry maguire with Cush, the
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: guy he was representing, and he was asking how his
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: day was, and he not a press conference all day,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: and he said he was so tired of talking about himself,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: and he got cushlash. Is that cushlash, cush slash. I
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: had a big time cush lash. I was tired of
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: my self. I don't want to talk about myself anymore.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: We focus on my own ship. And so I think
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: the great one of one of the great things while
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: being a mom is like I'm not the focus in
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: the center anymore. Yeah, And so I think that that's
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: one of the great things I did for my ego
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: is I'm not ruminating over my own crap. You know,
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: I am dealing with actual crap.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: So do you think like true confidence comes from I
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: guess being dominance or surrenders.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: Does confidence come from dominance? True dominance or true confidence?
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Confidence? I'm sorry, true confidence? Yes? You think true confidence
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: comes from dominance? Are surrender?
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: God?
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: I think it comes from experience. You know, my mom
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: had a saying that winning is a habit, and I
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: think that the experience of being through something and knowing
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: that you're capable. I think that's where that confidence comes from.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: And I think that's something that that's missing a lot
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: in MMA today is that a lot of people are
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: coming in and that's their first sport. Iam had, you know, competition,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: sperience in something else where they have that confidence from
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: having hundreds of matches doing something else. And yeah, So
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: like that's where a lot of my confidence came from,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: was I'd been in hundreds and thousands of matches and
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: that that experience of I am in these scary situations.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: But when I'm in these scary situations, I do my best.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: That's where a lot of that confidence comes from.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: What does peace look like for Ronda Rowley today.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: Peace, Oh man, I want to go. Well, my younger,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: my youngest son is he just committed to Boise and yeah,
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: and so we're going to be moving to Hawaii and
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: I'm going to go, you know, wrinkle under the sun
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: in paradise and bang out some babies and that is
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: that's that's that's my peace.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, I love that you had that
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: place in life.
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: A lot of times when you have such a big
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: career as a woman, you don't always get to this
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: place of like peace where that can be your piece,
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: where it's like family.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to settle for other things.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Well, I think like my mom, she she got married
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: and had kids really young, and she always told us like,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: don't get married young, and don't get married young. He
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: don't have kids young? Why not? Well she I think
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: she felt pressured at a young age. She got married
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: at like nineteen and you know, Catholic upbringing, felt like
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: she was living in sin and had had to marry
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: the guy, you know what I mean. And so I
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: think he just you're still getting to know yourself at
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: that age and you're not gonna I think you're lucky
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: if you find the one, because otherwise it's like, how
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: are you gonna know what you're gonna want for the
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: rest of your life? You don't even know who you are.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: And so she always told us to make sure that
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: we wait. And so I'm really glad that I waited,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: and I got wanted all my career stuff to be
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: done upfront so then I could just focus on my
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: kids because I saw my mom having three jobs and
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: raising us and you know, just doing doing everything on
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: expert level, because having kids makes everything expert level, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: I want to do the career on easy level. And
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: then do you know, momming on easy level, which I think, yeah,
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: well it's easy level compared to having three jobs and
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: being a mom, you know, but having three jobs of
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: being a mom compared to like, I could just focus
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: on being a mom, and if I need someone to
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: help me, like clean the house or something like that,
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: or help me like watch the kids, I'm not like
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: I have the means to do it, you know. And
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: that's what my mom wanted for us, is she. I
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: think she didn't want us to have to be working
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: three jobs and have her kids at the same time
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: and have it be as difficult as it was for her,
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: you know, she wants every generation to have it easier
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: than the one before that, and so that was kind
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: of like now now it's like, oh, I've done it all,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: and I can go I can do I can mom
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: real hard right now, and I can just focus on
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: that and not worry about it.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: And you know, you talked about writing the sequel to
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Expect Unexpected. Do you see storytelling as a new form
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: of healing for you?
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a really great way to put it.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: And why I got into it. I didn't get into
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: comics to be the next great comic book writer. Like
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: this is something that like really feeds my soul and
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: makes me happy and I'm just obsessed with it and
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: i can't walk away from it and I can't stop
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: doing it. And I'm just really lucky to be in
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: a situation where I can find people like the you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: the guys at Awa that that I can use my
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: name or even just get them to read it and
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: get you know, Axel Alonzo as a former like you
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: know editor in Cheat at Marvel to like look at
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: my scripts and and help me out with it and
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: get like said, like a dream team of people to
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: make this as good as possible. And you know I
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: am able to do that because of the other things
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: that I accomplished before, but I'm also not going to
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: try and just like you know coast On that I
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: want this to be able to exceed every expectation, because
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm not really good at half assing things.
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: I want. If I want to make like a graphic novel,
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: I'll make the best fucking graphic novel I can make,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: and make the best universe possible and make it the
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: best sequel possible, and if possible, like make it into
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: like make it into a film, make it into whatever,
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: create something out of nothing, out of just your mind.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I think that that that's incredible, especially when everything that
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: I've done that people really value has been so physical.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: To be able to do something stable like this is, uh,
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: it's really valuable to me.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: So what still drives you now, legacy? Love? Something deep?
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know, I guess, I guess love. I'm
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: very much in love with my amazing husband and my
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: amazing kids. And yeah, it's I think trying to find
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: things that are are our self fulfilling instead of looking
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: for that fulfillment outside of myself. Has been the real
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: lesson that I've gleaned from all of this and real happiness,
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: you know, and it's it's really nice to be able
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: to kind of, like, I don't know, separate myself from
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: that having to feel like I have to like perform
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: my life for people watching and just be like, you
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: know what, I'm really happy not not posting anything for
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: for weeks on end, instead of being like, oh, what's
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: gonna be like my post today? How do I make
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: sure that people know that I'm I'm doing stuff and
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: looking good and you know, still in the mix or
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: something like that, and it's otherwise being like what I
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: really I don't want to think about it. Me and
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: my husband we all got all new phones when we
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: moved to Hawaii, and we're just going to have to
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: start over again and not have you know, we have
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: our work phone with all of our stuff and stuff
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: on it, but have something with no social media, know anything,
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: you know, just give the number to people that are
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: close to us, and then once a day go and
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: check the work phone and check everything out. Instead of
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: just being like mentally stuck in this like yeah.
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: I was just wait, I get to that point in
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: career that was cute. Yes, start over a fresh phone
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: laid on the beach.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: On my side, Yeah exactly. Oh yeah, it's so close
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: I can I can taste it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: You know, I really believe you not getting back in
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: the ring now.
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: After talking to you. At first, I was like, it's
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: no because you're posting these videos. But after talking to you,
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: I mean, if you would, I'd be confused because you're.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: So happy right now.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Oh thank you.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: You seem happy anyway.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if I if I would, it wouldn't be in
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: a place to like I'm trying to patch up my
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: happiness and try to like find an antidote. I think
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: that's what it was before. If like, oh if I
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: get this fight, if I win this, then I'll be happy.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: You know. I think like if it would come from
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: an entirely different space, if ever, if ever came at all,
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: that it might happen. Okay, that Mike Tyson, you can
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: never say never. Now.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: Look at the shitty gets though, like like, oh you
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: come out there.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: You got he got twenty million dollars.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I mean some ship I wasn't get for whatever reason.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: You're right, it is agenda thing. You just got to
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: tell them what it is. End thin.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: It's just different for them, Like they can come out
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: there fight the youtubeers. Nobody says, oh, it's a trash
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: ass fight. Nobody says, you just collecting a check like
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: it's and he still gets tired.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: It's the baddest man on the planet.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: Baddest man on the planet. One hundred and eight million views,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: So fucking comment whatever you want. That's the most watched
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: fight of all time. And he was almost sixty. Yeah,
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: like that's that's and that's how much his legacy means,
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: how much his name, his name means you know like
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: that that that was really inspiring to me personally to
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: to see to see him do that.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: We need a popular female YouTube with a turn m
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: m a fighter real quick, all right, that's real quick.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Who's who is it?
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: Jenna Marbles?
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: I'm coming for you, demol Jenn State right there in
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: front of that camera.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: Just get the money on Netflix. That'll be a quick.
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: Little you know, who is she don't need to be
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: in the ring with keeping getting like house tours and
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: all those stream.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Who do you think you lie? Krishan Rock versus Ronda Rowsey?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: What were doing?
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: Netflix? Zeus?
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: What's up? Versus Randa Rousey. Everybody will tune in to
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: watch that.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Do you know who Christian is?
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: Am I aging myself by saying no, you're not, No,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: you're not.
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: There are people of all ages that may not be
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: into the Chris Shawan Rock of Things.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: She's younger than you and she can scrap, but I
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: got my money on you.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: But everybody will tune in for that.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, Kashan Rock versus Ronda Rowsey, Dana White, what's up?
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Netflix? What's up? Zeus? What's up? Let's make that happen.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: We'll come out there, host it, getting on all the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: iHeart stations promoting crazy Shan Rock versus Ronda Rowsey. I'm
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: putting everything on Ronda.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: What's up?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Heart?
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: That's the matchup you would if you can make it happen.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Well, what's what's like? Sean's like logline like.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: Who is just this?
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: And blue face? You know who blue faces down?
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: No, listen, Miss Rachel is like my whole universe right now.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: She's beautiful.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: She fights, he's fighting like street fight.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Got to God though.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: She reasonedly got twenty five, got a couple of kids,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: suit the matchup.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: I don't know she found God him. I have to
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: go like hit up Azalea Banks or something.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, now we were shot the rock banks.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, we're.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Doing some great, great.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: Banks. What were doing?
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: I'm there.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: I'd walk out to her song, just.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: We gotta make this happen.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: It's Ronda Rowsey Expecting the unexpected is available now.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. It's a great time.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. It's the Breakfast Club, every.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Day, a week ago, up the Breakfast Club.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: You don't finish, y'all done,