Cat Zingano, preparing for her July 14th fight against Marianne Renau in Boise, details her recovery from a TBI and endocrine damage post-Amanda Nunes, including PRTMS therapy at UC San Diego’s Mindset facility, which improved focus and motor skills after months of twice-daily sessions. She critiques the UFC’s 30-day injury claim window and advocates for fighter longevity over short-term gains, favoring a 145 lb weight class to balance health and performance. Zingano also reflects on her wrestling roots, Muay Thai dominance, and discomfort with boxing, while addressing controversies like Mackenzie Dern’s suspected bias at IBJJF Worlds. The conversation underscores MMA’s physical toll and the need for better neurocognitive support in combat sports. [Automatically generated summary]
Yeah, for people who don't know, TBI is traumatic brain injury, just in case someone who's listening to this doesn't understand what we're talking about.
And then in the Ronda fight, if people don't know about that, you just charged after her and you got caught in an arm bar.
You'd have to ask her, but there's a lot of lessons to be learned in what happened to her in terms of, like, all of the distractions and Hollywood came calling and there were scripts and talk about doing Roadhouse and there was all this shit going on that was other than fighting, you know?
And then it was also...
Look, the sport has evolved so rapidly, and the women's MMA has gotten so high level so quickly.
And I'm sure you saw Amanda's last fight with Raquel Pennington.
I'm like, holy shit!
I mean, that was a fucking high level performance from her.
And five rounds, super high cardio, just put a beating down on Raquel Pennington, who's one of the toughest girls in the world, for sure.
Right, and in Bantamweight right now, there's like, there's no standout contender, and Raquel had beaten some really good fighters, and she looked like the next in line, and did she blow her knee out as well?
I want to say she got like, oh, I could be lying, but I think she got in like some accident with a four-wheeler, like rolled over and broke her leg or something.
I could like totally be making that up though.
She could have just twisted it walking down the street too, so I don't know.
And, you know, found my way, like, right in the middle of all of that and found a way to use how aggressive I am and how just, like, domineering I can feel in there and all of that.
So it's like...
I want the maximum amount of damage without taking damage, which is obviously the goal, right?
But I want to put it into a dance, so it's like a little...
That's not a good place for people to live with any kind of inflammatory or major thing that needs to be healing because your body's already working at such a high level.
I spent so much time and so much money figuring out what the hell was wrong with me that I ended up at the Mayo Clinic spending weeks at a time going to all their specialized different doctors and situations like that for them to tell me, if you want to heal, you want to give yourself the best opportunity to heal, you're probably not going to do it up at altitude.
We would prefer seeing you at sea level.
So, combined, I needed to almost exile myself from Colorado because I want to love it.
And it was starting to get less colorful for me.
Because I felt like I had the best there was as far as coaches and the best there was as far as training partners.
And the situations, everything was as good as it was going to get.
I went, I wish I had written down like all the gyms I went to and showed up at like anonymously too because I didn't want them to like, I wanted to kind of catch them with their pants down.
Like what do you guys like right now versus if you're prepared.
I don't want to show up and have you have people here watching me.
I don't want you to put on a show.
Like I want to catch you how you are and like have you decide what you think of me too because this needs to be a fit.
I mean fighting and coaching and training is very intimate and Right.
Right.
Right.
So I went to all these places, and the best part about it is that I got to learn and train with so many fighters and so many coaches that I'm so excited about the relationships I made and the people I know.
But all of them, it was like, this is awesome, but it's not the place.
This is awesome, but it's not the place.
I came up to LA, and I was very close to going to American Top Team.
They had an awesome deal set up for me to go, like, helping me with my kid, helping me with a good percentage for training, like, how a living situation was going to be.
They were going to accommodate me really well.
But when it was time to, like, pack my car and go, like, something was, like, that wasn't it, you know?
Because my husband promoted me to purple belt and like I really want whoever takes over the lineage to be like that like I don't want it a different one from ten different people like I want that like I want to pick and it be right and so actually now I'm super excited because I just started training at Atos and I have so much respect for Andre and his wife and Angelica, they're so good.
And then the third round, I was awake and ready to go.
And, I mean, I felt warmed up.
I felt right.
And, you know, she was looking at the clock and backing up and all this.
And I was just like, come here, come here.
Like, I'm ready to fight finally.
Like, come here!
And, uh...
I don't know.
So there's something to be fixed about that.
I don't think it's a secret, but I don't know.
I think maybe something with the warm-up, I need to fully have a respiratory exhaustion before I go in so I can simulate those first rounds being the hell out of the way.
Like, gosh, we're bouncing around all these different things.
But I mean, one thing with that treatment center that I went to is like doing different things, like dealing with your psychology, dealing with like the synchrony in your brain, you know, having your brain function on the same hertz at the same or different areas of your brain.
Like, the main people in there, I mean, it's beautiful, not beautiful, but beautiful to see sitting in the lobby, waiting, when you see people with Alzheimer's come in.
Like, there's a man that wheels his wife in every day, and you can, I think at the beginning of the week, she gets, like, an IV, so she's, like, a little bit more up and chipper, but by the end of the week, you know, she's a little bit more slouched, and Stories like his where he's talking about, you know, before they started going in there, she would just go to the bathroom all over.
And every day this man takes care of his wife, puts her makeup on her, like goes and gets her hair done, even though she doesn't even know, you know.
And now she can at least tell him that she needs to go to the bathroom.
Like, just be like, hey, it's time, you know, and he can get her there.
And then, you know, sort of kind of have, like, meaningful moments that they haven't had in a while.
There's a ton of veterans in there.
And active veterans, too.
Active military guys that are, you know, they're doing these door breaches, and then they get their head rattled up too many times, and they're noticing they have problems with some depression.
I mean, and these are high-level Navy SEALs, high-level, like, special forces that need...
They're expensive people.
There's millions of dollars poured into these people, and they're not ready to let them go yet.
So they're like, how can we fix them, give them this performance edge, but still get them healed enough?
But we need to throw them back in there.
We need them.
And so I've had to sit in on appointments with the Department of Defense and talk about my experience with it.
I had to...
There's some really famous people, I don't even think I get to say because I'd be a dick and I'd probably be in trouble, but that I've sat in on and they've had their own issues with mental health or PTSD or...
Like autism, different things like family members of theirs or whatever that I've sat in on and kind of been helpful in talking about because I went in there on two different antidepressants.
Pennington's fight with Ashley Evans-Smith to this day, the ending, when she got her in that bulldog choke, covered in blood, and finished her literally one second.
No, and I was like, why am I not nervous the way that I get nervous?
Like, I was okay, which usually, like, especially two weeks out, I have this, like, flush of emotions, you know, where I'm, like, fetal position in the corner, like, what the fuck?
And then once it's over, all I want to do is kill, you know?
But, like, and I didn't have that either.
It kind of made me nervous, because my other friend, Barb Honcheck, she's a new 25-er, um...
We would always call each other and laugh at how dumb we were being at that point.
These can't be ones that make me gain a bunch of weight.
They can't make me...
I need to still be able to sleep.
I have to be able to have enough highs and lows to be able to function and learn and whatever.
So this is the best they could have for me.
Anyway, I fight that fight with Juliana.
I feel like the first round, I came out how I wanted.
And then halfway through the second round...
It was just awful.
She had my old coaches in her corner.
You know what's weird about that fight is I could hear you.
This is where the flat came in.
I didn't feel like I was in the fight.
I could see Herb Dean's feet and I could hear you talking about us.
And I saw...
Like, I could hear Juliana's coaches, and it was breaking my heart that they were coaching against me, because they were my Colorado gym, and she went and trained with them, and I know she had trained with them previously, I mean, before she had taken the fight, but to me it was, like, fucked up to hear, you know, and it hurt me in a way, like, it's...
I wish I could explain it better, but it was like I heard them and I just wanted to go home.
You know, I look at the clock and I'm like, can this just be over?
I don't want to go back to Colorado.
I want to move.
And I literally, on this side of the cage, I had my past in Colorado.
I had these coaches.
I had the drama with that gym.
How everything went.
And then on this side, it was like all new problems.
Like San Diego, Eric and them were good.
Like there was a lot of training partners there.
It was sunny.
It was similar to Colorado, different, but in the right ways, you know?
And then on top of that is like it's just I don't know the rest of it was just like punishing her she's kind of like sassy before the fight anyways like in awkward ways like not even like cool hypey ways like just staring at me really weird in a room where it was just like me and Tim Kennedy sitting there eating like watermelon and stuff after weigh-ins and I look over and she's just like like staring at me all weird I was like damn Tim's like dude I'm like I know what do we do?
I'm like, I can throw a plate of watermelon at her.
Because that was, I mean, look, it's just a fight.
There is a referee.
You're going to be saved.
But one of the things that George St. Pierre said last week when he was on the podcast, he said the mentality that you go in there, the way you fight, you are a warrior.
Like, you know that you're going to be rescued, but you are fighting for your life.
And when you're fighting a fucking killer like Amanda, and you get lit up like you did and survive that first round, then go back and stop her.
Fuck us fighting over territory or food or whatever.
I need to know what would happen.
That's why I want these finishes.
We only get 15 minutes to be able to tell ourselves what would have happened in that situation.
And when it goes to a decision, I'm pissed because I don't know.
You know?
Like, you don't know.
Especially these three-round fights where I'm waking up, like, these last couple fights, like, late in the fight, I'm pissed because I'm like, I don't know.
If that would have been another 30 minutes or another two hours that we're scrapping in the woods, like, who gets the bone?
You know?
I want to know.
And so that's, it's crazy, and it's your practicality, and it's your survival, and this is the way I get to know myself.
The way you just put it, I don't think I've ever heard anybody put it that way.
You need to know.
Yeah.
That's intense.
But I get it.
I get it.
That's where that scream comes from.
You got the bone.
So, you go down to San Diego.
What was your shortlist?
By the way, I'm a huge fan of Eric.
Alliance is just one of the best camps, for sure.
And I think Eric Del Fiero is probably one of the most underrated.
And because he doesn't toot his own horn.
He's in the shadows, laid back...
Doesn't want any attention.
Just not trying to get any attention like he's the last guy to like request attention You know but super super knowledgeable and one of the best guys in a corner to like his advice is always excellent I Never never heard him say the wrong thing in the corner.
He's always like on point But what was your short list of places to go to besides the Lions?
Yeah, and coming from Colorado and coming from like chill outdoorsy, you can drive 20 minutes and be somewhere no one's ever stood before, to like stuck in traffic, breathing air you don't want to breathe, like everyone's a little pissed off, but no one really knows why.
Yeah, I mean, when I'm there, especially, it's like such, it's a Buddhist culture.
People are so happy.
I mean, you have your shit there just like you have everywhere else, but at the same time, like, the Muay Thai training is good.
I know the places I would go to jiu-jitsu, like the Fairtex in Pattaya is...
is coming around and pretty solid like I've been considered that for this camp just to kind of like make some changes because I really want to have that influence and that like exposure to the authentic Muay Thai again like when I looked back at my most successful and most happy times after these three fights I've lost three in a row like that doesn't happen I'm not saying you know I'm like no I'm better than this like something's up and I know there's a lot that I need to work on I mean Like,
my life in general, and I'm doing it, and I'm happy to be doing it, and I'm happy to be getting the lessons, even if this is how I have to get them.
Like, fuck it.
At least I know.
So, I tried to look back and analyze, like, what was I doing when I was my favorite fighter, when I was feeling the best, and it was, like, very traditional, thick Muay Thai and very traditional, thick Jiu-Jitsu.
So, that this camp...
Has been something that I'm going to also be outsourcing because I want to be in that element.
So I'm doing actual Muay Thai with John X. He's a Jeremy Stevens Muay Thai coach, I think, too.
And then my Jiu-Jitsu with Atos.
Because before, I would do these separate disciplines, put them together in drills and sparring, and then go mangle people.
And then have fun with it because it's like these little goals I'd set, like this little bucket list I would take into a fight with me.
And try to pull those things off and then go learn new stuff and then go try to do that.
That's why I was constantly evolving every fight.
Even the fight with Amanda when I snapped her down and I had her by her head and everyone's screaming, knees, knees!
I'm like, hold my beer.
And that's when I go and I throw her with the, you know, the, what do they call it, a DDT? It wasn't.
It was a freestyle front headlock suplex.
But it was like...
I want every fight to be different and fun.
Know what I have, but see what else I got.
I don't even get to play that right now because I'm fucking up.
I'm not doing what I want in these fights, so I decided to take steps backwards.
They're so ride or die and, like, I'm so proud of them.
But, um...
I didn't even start doing my own social media.
My husband did my social media.
And so, all of a sudden, I get thrown into social media and how social media works when I'm at my most low, vulnerable- And you're reading all that shit?
I didn't know you're not supposed to.
I'm looking at it like investments, right?
I'm like, oh, here's the stock.
I'm going to put money into this stock and let's just see how it turned out.
Oh, that's funny.
And then I was like, oh.
And I think the first person that ever told me not to do that was Callan.
It was so foreign to me because, I mean, in wrestling, like, I did wrestling, I did soccer, volleyball, swimming, like, I never, ever heard anyone be discouraging.
Like, no one ever came to me and was like, fuck you, you suck.
Yeah, because you wouldn't get that from someone who was a fan or someone, even if someone's from an opposing team and, like, she ain't shit, they're just saying that because they want to beat you.
You know, it's like, but the haters that you're dealing with online, they're just...
There's a lot.
Look, life is fucking complicated.
It's hard to get right.
And as you're seeing with your very difficult career, there's a lot of decisions to be made.
You can fuck it up.
You've got to build back up again.
And you're a smart person who's strong and successful.
For losers, life is impossible.
It's impossible.
And so they go through life just angry and depressed and sad and failing at everything they do, but they still have a phone.
Or they still have a laptop.
And like, you fucking cunt, you fucking loser.
And that's what you're getting.
That's what you're getting.
You're getting all that anger.
You don't even know this person.
Why are they angry at you?
Because they're angry at life.
Because life has fucked them in the ass.
That's why they're angry.
They're angry at life because...
They got dealt a shit existence, right?
They have bad genetics.
They have a bad family.
They have a bad job.
They live in a bad neighborhood.
They have bad people around them.
They feel bad.
Everything's wrong, but they still get to talk.
They still get to talk shit, and they still get to type things, type mean things out.
That's why you can't read comments.
Because it's fucking hot.
The only thing you could do is inspire with your work, with what you do.
And you do that already.
You know, and you're a human being.
You're going to make mistakes, and you're going to do things right, and you're going to do things wrong, and you're going to have these epic moments, and you're going to have these failures.
Because that's just a part of doing things that are complicated.
It's sad because those people that are doing that, they're in pain.
That's the only reason why they would lash out at you like that.
They go, no, I'm just telling the truth.
You just can't handle the truth.
Even if it was the truth.
The way in which people say it and the reason why they're saying it is because they want to hurt your feelings.
They're not being kind.
You know, there's a lot of that going on today.
I mean, even in the media, the way people tell stories and write stories and write articles about people, it's like they're not...
It's not just that they're trying to tell the facts and explain what's happening.
They're trying to cut people down and hurt people.
And I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that our fucking president does that.
Because it seems more prevalent now than ever before.
It seems like there's a trend.
And I think a lot of One of the things about the president, whoever the president is, is there's some people that are not going to listen to anything he says, but there's a certain amount of people that are going to take his actions and use it as almost like a barometer.
So, again, you get in there, and it's scary to go.
Again, like I said, there's all these different people in there.
The man found the research on it by treating his own autistic kid, and you can see the before and after videos of this kid, and it's like, damn.
Okay, and then I brought my son in too because he has ADHD and he's off his medication now as well.
So going in there, they do an EEG first and they can tell which parts of your brain are firing at what hurts and seeing the congruencies and how all of that is happening or not happening.
And then they kind of prescribed these machines on your brain that make these electric impulses but they're magnetic to kind of speed up or slow down the different parts of your brain so if the front of your brain is moving slower than the back of your brain or whatever.
So, they're noticing, obviously, patterns with fighters, hockey players, football players, like people that are leading with their heads, basically.
And then with the veterans, there's emotional things, too.
It's kind of like a TENS machine or a STEM machine, but like a super, super low frequency.
And that's badass, too.
Like, it helped on injuries.
Like, you know, if I rolled my ankle or hurt my toe, like, you could bring the swelling down from this to normal, essentially, in like an hour and a half, just working with this, like...
Tens unit on it and and I mean they they originally used it for racehorses and and for you know Super expensive million-dollar horses like the equipment they brought over.
It was like 90 grand and like like these really Specific like special metals that were put into these plates and you know they would do stuff like that But that wasn't working on my head It was working on injuries, and it was working on, I want to say it helped with, like, my digestive system, maybe, or my, I don't remember.
Some other things it was helping with, too, but what, you know, I started doing that, or I was doing that when I walked into Mindset and started doing that treatment.
So you sit in a chair, you know, and they put this prescription in this machine, and the machine has kind of got like an arm that goes on a specific part of your brain, and you close your eyes and it sends these magnetic pulses into your head.
And, I mean, you don't feel anything.
It's almost like you can hear what it feels like.
I don't know how to describe it.
It's a sense.
It's sensual, but it's not exactly hearing and it's not exactly feeling.
I haven't gone these past couple weeks because stuff with my kids' schedule, school is almost out, and then wanting to try out different things, different coaches as far as these new disciplines go.
So I haven't been there as much.
But yeah, for the last August, I believe, is when I was really, really getting into it and going twice a day.
And so I would drop my kid off at school, I would run, and then I would go there, I would do my treatment, I'd go back to practice down in southern San Diego, then I'd get my son, and then we'd go up there for the afternoon session.
And then I'd come back down and we'd go to his sports and then I'd have my second two-a-day.
But, I mean, if you play that video for them, if anybody in the insurance business was denying you coverage, saying that it didn't happen while you were under the banner of the UFC, like, you're out of your fucking mind.
Watch that video.
What do you think is happening while this fucking assassin is throwing bombs at your face?
Listen, it might make sense if it was dealing with a broken hand or a torn ligament or something like that.
It might make sense.
It might.
It does not make any fucking sense if you're talking about brain injuries.
Because anybody who understands how brain injuries work know that there's a considerable amount of time after a fight where you still are suffering from symptoms.
And you might decide 30 days later, 60 days later, 90 days later, you've got to do something about it.
It kind of goes together with any kind of mental anything.
You talk about mental illness, you talk about head injuries, you talk about TBI, it all goes into that stigma of you can't see it, so it must not be real.
But if they're like, alright, and then they explain some philosophy about it or do some movement or whatever, then I lose what we're doing.
My mind would just go right to something else.
I had a very hard time concentrating.
You know, it's crazy because when I got to this facility, you know, I didn't know...
I didn't necessarily know what I was walking into, but they have you do this questionnaire.
And, like, on this questionnaire is, like, all of these things.
I'm like, that's part of something.
Like, me not being able to focus, that's part of something.
My sleep, that's part of something.
This startle effect is part of something.
Like, me having these, like, completely, like, specific things that are all on this was like, damn, okay.
Like, I didn't even want to see the EEG because I was scared, you know?
I was like...
What if you can't fix me and now I know all the shit that's wrong with me?
That sucks.
But then they show you different EEGs and they take it every single week.
And so you actually get to see it and you get to see the level that you were functioning at, especially the different parts of your brain.
And the thing that's awesome about this is you get to keep the results.
Unless you go do exactly what you did and go fuck it up again, you get to keep it.
It's not like this maintenance package, which is a problem for these pharmaceutical companies.
There's not a whole lot of retention on it because once people get their brains functioning, as long as you're not sitting there hitting your head against the wall, you get to keep feeling better.
These veterans get to go back to To combat or whatever it is their job is.
We fighters get to go back.
Football players get to go back.
I sat in with the Chargers medical staff and talked about our stuff there as well.
I don't even remember who else.
There was people from all over the country coming in asking about this and needing to sit in and they're looking at these EEGs in particular.
So one, I think, you know, there's something with what goes on in your brain with with the thyroid stuff with the endocrine stuff is like getting your damage to your hypothalamus, right?
And that's like, That kind of directs all of the information that goes to your thyroid.
Your thyroid then sends out everything to your body.
When there's a disconnect there, it screws everything up.
And then on top of it, now that we're cutting the same weight we've always had to cut, but we don't get IVs, you cannot...
100% rehydrate your brain within 45 or 48 hours like you can get your body decently hydrated I believe but your brain is just it's its own thing you know and so now we don't have IVs our hydraulic system in our brain is down and now we're rattling it even more like dehydrated I mean we're just gonna have you know bigger side effects to our brains being dehydrated with that now The damage that comes to the hypothalamus,
to the pituitary, to your thyroid, all of that that goes on there, they're saying that you can get it firing back at a level that it was before it got hurt.
As long as the cells are still alive in it, they can re-energize those cells.
Now, if you have just a dead part of your brain, they're not bringing it back to life, but they can...
Use these magnets to kind of fluff them back up, give them back their energy, their life, and put them back into a functional way that was something similar to you at your healthiest.
And make it, I mean, not more or less durable, just back- When you were saying motor skills, that's one of the things that they see in fighters that have taken too many shots.
They analyze fighters' gaits and one of the things that happens is your legs get closer together, your balance is off, your steps are shorter, you don't have that sort of dynamic fluid motion to your body and you're having a harder time with balance and just motor skills.
All I saw was close the distance, don't get hit in the head, get down, get low, and just be a linebacker.
And hit them because I knew I wasn't seeing that stuff.
And the more I tried to see it, The more I would just sit there and wear it because I'm like, any minute now, any minute now, I'm going to catch the pattern.
And then I go to the next one and then my heart's broken again.
And then the next one.
So this one, I'm like, I'm not even going to tell people about this because I'm sick of fucking hitting up people and being excited about it and telling them to come with me and then it doesn't work and then I'm that guy again.
You know, and so going into this and then watching it work and then seeing all the other people it was working for in there that and they were never trying to push me to promote it.
They were like just come in just get here, you know, and and if you like it then tell the because the UFC was talking about getting one of the machines at the PI and they're kind of gonna have me be like a guinea pig for it.
Ian McCall went in there too, but it didn't like he he was doing his own kind of I don't think he was coming in often.
Oh.
So I think, and the thing is, is that it does stir shit up, right?
So like, they mess with your, the levels because again, they have to like, if the back of your brain's running at four hertz and, okay, eight is technically where like you're sleeping, There's part of your brain that could be under your resting hertz, right?
While the front of your brain is running at 12. So that's like high anxiety, but like low energy.
And they can almost tell you how you've been feeling lately, which was like...
And they can tell, you know, because of this and this, that you have some OCD tendencies versus this person constantly feels like they have no energy and their memory isn't working and they're emotionally incapable of, like, being in, you know, being a positive force in a relationship right now because they don't have it.
Personalized Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, a Non-Invasive Therapeutic Approach to the Treatment of PTSD and Other Neurocognitive Disorders.
Kevin T. Murphy, MD, Vice Chair, Department of Radiation and Medicine, Applied Sciences, UC San Diego, Director...
Pediatric Radiation Oncology Program, Rady Children's Hospital San Diego.
Wow.
So that's where you're going.
And, I mean, obviously, during this whole thing, you have to be questioning what you do for a living.
It's so important that you're talking about this, because this is such a factor that we don't see.
On the outside, other people.
Other people than the people that are really close to you that you talk to about these things.
Like if we were seeing you fight, and when we see the decline of certain fighters, you see certain fighters, they're in a couple really hard fights, and then you see a decline, like a real obvious decline in their skills and their abilities.
Very, very rarely are they opening up about what's going on, about losing memory, about not being able to see patterns in people, about not having their motor skills in tune anymore, that things are off.
So you talking about this, I think, it's so important.
And it's so important for young fighters to recognize, like, hey, this is also on the table.
Here's a great therapy for it, but this is also a possibility of, you know, if you do fight, Fucking killer like Amanda Nunes.
Well, and it's partially because I have man I have teammates.
Yeah, I have people that are ten times worse than me that are just like I Mean the stuff I hear the stuff I see it's it's sad and it's scary and they have kids And they're not going anywhere soon, you know, I mean and they're passing their MRIs Right, you know, I mean like the past their MRIs because what does the MRI really see?
And, you know, like right now in this world, it's juvenile and it's not getting us like this kind of like...
I can't afford to take another two years off because I went and I fought cyborg while I'm sick and something bad happens to me.
You know what I mean?
I want to be sharp and if that means I have to take the time I took off and get healthy and do all these different therapies, conservative, traditional, non-traditional, all of that, so I can feel the way I feel now.
I'm pumped.
And I'm excited.
But that is something that I really want to know that people know they can go do.
And it's not vulnerable.
It's not saying you're weak.
It's not something wrong with you.
It's your health and your longevity and your future.
Because that shit, if you don't treat it, it doesn't get better.
And you don't understand the depression.
You don't understand...
And there's an identity that goes away with that.
Like, seeming like you failed or you can't do it anymore or whatever, like, that mental health aspect that comes with the physical health of your brain, like, that all needs to be more educated as far as these fighters go, as far as all of it goes.
Like, I'm happy to be the guinea pig because I'm, damn, I just want to see everybody okay, you know?
Well, I'm happy that you're talking about it, but it's been something that, you know, I've talked about quite a bit and the real problems behind traumatic brain injuries because I've had a bunch of experts and I've talked to a bunch of neurologists and I've talked to neuroscientists and people that are really studying this stuff and I've been real vocal about it and it's a tricky situation because obviously I'm a commentator,
but like When someone gets knocked out, I'm very vocal about them taking a long time off.
And it was one of the things that happened after Rhonda got knocked out by Holly.
They were talking about getting her back within like, it was like four or five months later to fight again.
And I was like, they were going to have a rematch with Holly.
I'm like, you guys are fucking crazy.
Like, you're crazy.
She shouldn't be doing anything.
She shouldn't be getting hit.
She shouldn't be sparring.
She shouldn't be getting her head rattled.
And she definitely shouldn't be fighting Holly fucking home who just kicked her into another dimension five months later or whatever it was, six months later.
I'm like, there's no way.
This should not be happening.
You don't even know what's going on yet.
You don't even know what kind of damage.
I mean, think of what happened with you and Amanda.
I mean, I know they put a flashlight in your eyes and ask you if you're okay, send you to the doctor, do whatever, but I mean, like, and I think, honestly, that's what the UFC's, like, effort was in this, in offering this information of this treatment to me was to see, like, hey, is this something that would benefit fighters in a situation like that?
It's at the PI. It's not at the PI, but what they were saying is it would be at the PI. Still, but the trick with it is that it is something you need to go to and you need to go to twice a day and have that, like, schedule of it and that routine of it.
But us as fighters, like, flying to only Vegas for it and paying our own room and board our own flight, potentially having to fly our coaches in to have to, you know, keep us working and doing whatever while we're working.
Getting through everything that I'm getting through and learning everything that I'm learning is so inspiring to me because I definitely don't feel done.
I still have so much fight in my heart.
And I really love putting my hands on people and always advancing and improving.
And the day I stop improving, then I can look at that.
But right now, I don't care about plan B. I don't care about what's next because that's not what's happening.
I mean, and like even how much you get to learn just even going into a fight, right?
Like realizing, so going into a fight, being on antidepressants, like, okay, I'll wake up, I'll wake up.
I don't know what this will do.
I feel flat.
I don't feel flat.
I'll be okay with these people there.
I won't be okay with these people here.
All of that is very clear about things that, like, this has my attention.
Whether I know it or not, that's something in my life that needs to be looked at, needs to be addressed.
Okay, there's direction.
Like, all I ever want is understanding and direction.
Like, I just want to know, you know?
And so, I get to deal with that.
That leads me to come to San Diego.
San Diego is a new chapter in my life that I get to name.
Also, for my kid and myself, I get to reveal so much to myself through trying different things and through letting life take me down the path that I'm supposed to without me sitting here freaking out about control, freaking out about things that I can do nothing about.
I just want to walk away from all of this.
Content and happy with how I did.
Whether that means I never have my hand raised again.
I don't think that's the case.
Like, beating these girls having the belt, that is not a pipe dream.
I already beat them.
You know, it's not like I'm incapable of that and I'm just wishing I got my fingers crossed.
You know, it's It's not that.
My whole journey of my life in sports from being a kid was to meet my highest best, to be my highest good.
And that is what's driven me the whole time.
I look at these girls and I respect them because they're here doing what I'm doing.
We're all just out here trying to be the best at it.
We're all trying to participate.
We're all trying to, you know...
Find ourselves in it and learn what we can learn and go implement it, you know?
And so for that, I have respect for every single one of them.
Some of them I like less than others.
Some of them I like more than others, you know?
But really, we're building this stage together.
We're doing this together, you know?
And I'm extremely proud to be part of something like this.
And my position in it and my purpose in it is to, you know, Find my personal good, my personal best.
And, you know, this has been an extremely long road for me.
Nothing has been easy, and I respect that.
Like, I'm grateful for that.
Like, all the things I know because of the hard times, like, I feel fortunate to know, you know?
And I would never have learned them any other way.
And I get to handle them.
And not only do I get to handle them, I get to, like...
Relate and understand people and see things differently because I get it.
You know, maybe not exactly word for word, pinpoint per...
But, you know, it's all there and it all matters to me and how I get through this really, really matters to me because I know it matters to other people too.
You know?
And how they do inspires me as well.
unidentified
Do you know what you're going to do when you stop?
Also, the kind of drive and discipline and work ethic that you showed to become a top-level MMA fighter and a national champion in wrestling, you could do anything with that.
And whatever you set your mind to.
I really truly believe that.
I mean, I think the biggest problem that fighters have when they retire is finding a thing to put their energy to and then their identity.
Because their identity is of a fighter.
And when that is taken away from them...
There's that and also the thrill.
I mean, you guys are experiencing a level of excitement and intensity.
Like, when you're talking about two weeks out, you're crying in the fetal position, going, what the fuck am I doing?
But that all...
It builds up to these moments, like that crazy primal scream after you stopped Amanda Nunes.
That's an experience that very few people, other than people who fight to the death, are feeling.
There's something that you guys are experiencing that, unless you're the person in the woods fighting over that bone, you really don't know.
And then for you to go to regular life after that, It's going to be hard.
And it's going to be hard for a lot of fighters.
It's very difficult for a lot of fighters to find another thing that excites them the way fighting excites them.
Because it's such a crazy pursuit.
And then on top of that, you're dealing with what you're dealing with.
But you're dealing with it publicly.
You're talking about it.
You're doing a great service to everybody when you're talking about your problems and your issues.
Because there's so many fighters that you know that are experiencing this and that I know that are experiencing this.
Anybody who's done any sort of martial arts competition and been in gyms, you're going to see people that have taken too many shots.
It's just part of the game.
What you're doing by talking about it so openly while you're still a top-level fighter is, I think, very, very important for everybody.
It's a creeper van, you know, with like a little dish of candy in there.
Yeah, it's like you get in and it's the same exact chair, you know, and then they have their...
They're trained to nurse know where to put it on you.
And then even the EEG, it's a wireless EEG, so I know that every week they make you do the EEG relatively the same time so they can keep good track of what your brain is doing and how to prescribe the levels to be at what on your head.
And I think they have one in Arizona.
I know there's one in Texas.
I want to say there's 12 over the country, but I can't tell you where.
And so when they're doing this to you, and you said you got it in August, you started doing it, and you started seeing improvements after, you said, four weeks?
Who decides what you're going to do as far as how much work you're going to do, what kind of training you're going to do, whether you're going to do sparring, whether you're going to do...
So this training camp, I'm outsourcing different things.
So I have...
I talked to Eric Del Fiero about it and like I said I wanted to outsource the Jiu Jitsu and the Muay Thai and those are gonna in itself take so much time right and then my strength and conditioning I'm doing with Chad Macias he's badass so my strength and conditioning coach Lauren Landau do you know who he is in Colorado so he's like Family to me.
He's been there for everything.
I don't even know when he got there, but he was always there.
He told me about Chad.
And so I started doing strength and conditioning with him.
I'm going to do that three days a week.
And then I know that I want to get working with the more traditional Muay Thai again.
So I'm working with John X two days a week.
And I think he's going to arrange my sparring as well.
And then Andre Galval, I'm going to try to work two or three days a week.
And then, so I handed all of that information to Lauren Landau.
And my other coach, my nutritionist, is Josh Ford.
Have you seen him before?
He's got like a tattoo goatee on his face.
No.
He's been doing my nutrition and he's known me since all I did was jujitsu.
You know, so he's been around.
He knows my style.
He knows...
Me as a crazy fighter and all of that.
Between Lauren Lando and Josh Ford, they're putting it together based off of what they've seen out of me in the past.
But if you're going to jiu-jitsu and you're doing a lot of jiu-jitsu training and then you're going to Muay Thai and doing Muay Thai training, when do you get together and do MMA training?
That part, I still got to figure out down in San Diego.
I want a freestyle wrestler.
I'm not...
I got a great shot.
I'm good at shots and whatever, but I'm way more about throws.
I like...
They're so much more efficient for me.
I got awesome hips for them.
And it's just like, man, they're high risk, high reward, but it's my funky style.
I just get them done.
And it's so much less effort.
When you toss someone over their head on the ground and they don't know where they are for a minute, there's so much to capitalize on there with the equilibrium just off.
And those are things I like, I count on.
So I need to find that freestyle situation.
I have good freestyle wrestling myself, but obviously it's good to stay on top of those.
It's my strength, but I need to keep my strength strong, so I'm looking.
I'm friends with Ray LB, who's her boyfriend, and he hit me up when I was supposed to fight Rhonda.
They were hitting me up during my training camp, like, hey, because I think obviously they have beef, and I think they wanted it to be kind of political, but I'm just nodding to that.
But they were like, hey, how about Chris?
Do you have any girl training partners?
How about Chris come train with you to get ready for Rhonda?
And I just remember, like, I remember coming into MMA and, like, I used to cut to 125. Like, dying.
Dying.
So I wanted to be ranked number one at 125. That was my goal before I moved up.
And I did.
I was ranked number one there.
Beat everybody I could beat.
And then it was just kind of like...
The last time I made 125, I fought a girl named Takeo Hashi from Japan.
And...
I remember it was like last minute because I was supposed to fight a girl.
Something happened to her and then they replaced her with Takeo.
And I just remember being so happy that we were at altitude because I was like, I think I had a heat stroke at the water cut, like the bathtub cut because I was in the water for like 20 minutes, and I remember at 10 minutes, I was like, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, and they're like, you have to stay.
You have to stay.
And so, at the 20-minute line, I dove like a salmon out of the water, and I passed out on my floor, and gave no shits that my manager's there, and I'm naked, and I don't know, I'm out, to the point where they're doing the knuckle rub on my sternum to try to get me up.
They're eliminating weight cuts by doing hydration tests and testing people several times during camp, finding out what you weigh, finding out what your actual weight is.
And Ben Askren went into the way they're doing it in detail when I did a podcast with him.
But that seems to be the way.
And they made everybody move up a weight class, essentially.
I mean, and that's the thing is, okay, like, contracts can still exist, but maybe you're just contracted as a fighter and you have to fight certain amounts of time a year or whatever, but to have people contracted to weight classes is, like, it's hurting the sport, and it's obviously hurting fighters individually as well, but, like...
So at that point, what do these divisions really matter?
It's about the matchup.
You know, you can throw a belt on any fight these days.
So I think if we're going to evolve the sport to having entertaining fights or entertainment-type fights, we should just evolve the contracts to that as well.
I thought watching the Tanya Avenger fight, there was a lot of things that I saw in that fight against Chris that I was like, damn, that right there, there's something I could do there.
Well, remember right after the fight, I interviewed her after she won.
First of all, that fight bothered me.
It bothered me a lot.
She hit Holly after the bell twice.
One hard.
And really rocked her.
And I watched that and I was like, fuck man.
That is a big shot.
You could say you accidentally did it once maybe, but she did it twice and one time hurt her bad.
And Even so, when I watched the fight, I'm like, that's the times when she hurt Holly, was after the bell.
But Holly fucked her up twice in that fight.
She hit her with that question mark kick, cracked her and rocked her, and then she hit her with a straight left hand and dropped her too.
I felt like Holly deserved the nod in that fight, and I definitely think she deserved the nod if you take points away, which I definitely think she had points taken away from her.
I just think...
I just didn't, it didn't sit with me well.
And then after the fight, she said she needed, when I asked her about Cyborg, she's like, yeah, I'm getting surgery.
She's like, I got something wrong with my thumb or something.
So I was like, okay, she's going to get some surgery.
And then, then it became a PED issue.
She said that Cyborg is a lifetime PED cheater, that she's a performance enhancing drug user and that everybody knows it and she's not going to fight her.
So she basically just gave up her title and went back down to 35, I think.
So she is fighting again.
I don't know if she went and got surgery on whatever was going on with her hand, but she is going to fight again.
Like, that is really strange that you could, like, get a horse, you got him in the barn, the horse was like, fuck you, fuck you, and you're like, no, fuck you!
You get a rope around him, and they're like, alright, alright, you got me.
You can ride me around now.
It's very strange.
I mean, what a weird relationship people have with fucking horses, you know?
Just because my brain was working in all these ways, like, I got really excited about that treatment center, the mindset place.
And then, again, there's all those other people in there that are in there and the veterans and stuff.
I was like, man, if...
I could get some of them down there working with these horses.
One, it gives them something to do.
Because the ones that are disabled, they're hating life.
And that place, it's awesome because after a few months of being there, they all want to know how to help.
They're like, tell me what I can do around here, you know?
And even with that, I'm like, man, if I could even get them down there, like, sometimes if all you do at this place is shovel shit, you know, it's still like you're around these horses, and this place in particular, they're all rescues, and it's called Ferdinand's Familia, and they've all been mistreated at some point, or they were trained to be something that they never graduated to being, and so they were trash.
And now they need to turn these horses into rideable horses or whatever.
That's the goal.
And then they have this...
It's near Imperial Beach.
It's on that land, right on Tijuana.
So you get...
The goal is to take them on this trail that goes all the way to the beach and you can ride up and down the beach freely.
I think one day we're going to look back on countries.
Like, the human race.
One, I think...
One of the things that's happening to the human race, for sure, is that we're getting closer to each other.
We're getting, we can, like, I'll read, like, tweets that someone will post in Spanish or in Chinese or whatever, and you just press translate, and then you get to read it, you know, translate to English.
And I'm like, wow.
There it is.
I could read this guy's words.
And they have this thing called the Google Pixel.
You know, it's a phone.
And they have these Pixel Buds, these earbuds.
And these earbuds will translate in real time.
Like, you could say some shit to me in Spanish, and it'll translate it in real time to English.
Yeah, and I think that, you know, so, like, shoulder-to-shoulder, person-to-person, I feel like a bit of a disconnect, you know?
But social media, like, we get to share information, sometimes not good information, sometimes good information.
Like, the fact that people are communicating, I think, is important.
It's making people take stands on things that they're all finding out, oh, you believe that too, or I think that too, like, cool, like, I can find my people.
But on the actual oxytocin social side, people actually getting to know each other, those intimate relationships, I feel like that part is suffering a little bit from it.
Yeah, I think that's suffering a little bit in real life because people are in cars, they're in traffic, they're isolated, then they go to work and they're in a cubicle all day and they get home and they're in their apartment or their house.
Yeah, there's not a lot of interaction with people.
And I just think this is just a side effect of modern life.
It's weird that there's so many, like in LA, there's so many people next to each other and almost nobody knows their neighbor.
It's very strange.
What I'm talking about is I think countries are stupid.
Like states.
I think countries are like states.
Like, I think we should build a wall over Florida before we should build a wall over Mexico.
I mean, Florida's a state, right?
But Florida is just as alien as, like, say, Finland or something like that.
I mean, it's just the fact that you can move out of Florida and, like, fuck Florida, man, I'm going to move to Atlanta.
And then you go up there and, like, nobody stops you.
You just go.
But if you're in Tijuana, like, you're like, nah, dog.
There's a fence up here, bitch.
There's no crossing.
To me, that seems super fucking strange.
And almost guaranteeing that those spots are fucked forever.
The only way anything's ever going to level out is if you let anybody travel wherever they want.
And nobody's willing to do that because it might fuck up the good spots.
Like La Jolla would be like, no, no, no, you can't just...
But they have an ability at both the peninsula edge and the bridge to shut it down as a community if shit's going down on the island and they don't want someone to get off.
So, Alliance has been, like, real helpful on my hands.
Like, I would say there's a ton of improvement as far as that goes.
And I never really focused on boxing before.
Like, I worked Muay Thai and kickboxing between Dutch and Thai style, you know.
And then to go there and have my hands sharpened was...
It was pretty cool.
It was hard for me to relate boxing to any sport I'd ever done.
As an athlete growing up, as a kid, if I can't understand something that I'm learning, I try to relate it back to some muscle memory of some motion I've done before in some other sport.
Volleyball or swimming or like what's the mechanics of how I've moved in something that I can even dance like turn into getting like some kind of value out of so I can learn this thing and like boxing was not like anything that I'd ever done before.
Like I've never had a predominantly hands-on sport that I was good at so it's been the the most What's the word?
I don't know.
The most work and the least natural of all of the disciplines.
And just having the hips and everything with that that came with wrestling, that came with the footwork of soccer, of dance, of all that stuff.
That contributed, I think, easily and translated easily over to that.
But boxing was...
Um, not so much, you know, but part of me also thinks like, you know, some of that had to come with, with learning, like you, you got to get hit to realize you don't want to get hit.
But I think for your joints, For your range of motion and flexibility there's almost nothing better because you're so hot and sweaty everything's loosened up and you can get into like deep deep stretches and deep poses and also like for your foot strength and posture and balance all that stuff is amazing amazing for your back strengthening your back your knees It's really good for jiu-jitsu fighters.
I mean jiu-jitsu people love it so one of the best things for jiu-jitsu because Jiu-Jitsu is so static, you know, so much of it is like holding on and like trying to advance position slowly and there's these bursts of, you know, explosive movements, but so much of it is just clenching and...
And I think you really benefit from being able to, you know, in these yoga poses, holding these poses for 30 seconds when your body's burning and you're, you know, you're having a difficult time just standing up.
I think adding the heat component to it too, especially if you're a weight cutting fighter, like getting to know your body and teaching it how to sweat, right?
Like this last training camp was pretty awesome with that because I got a sauna for my...
One, I got a sauna a while ago.
I was using a red light for healing and I was using the sauna because I know that you can naturally boost your growth hormone if you're in that every night and help yourself before you go to sleep.
So I was in that every night I tried to go in for like 45 minutes and that was so helpful in going into the fight week weight cut because it was like I know what it feels like when it's time to get the fuck out and I know what it feels like when it's time that I'm like that sound like when I'm dripping like crazy I still got another good 20 minutes of me sitting here like this.
You know, and I think it's really hard on fighters when they're not in a sauna or that hot for their entire camp and then they just expect that out of their body the day before a fight.
Oh, that's nice too, especially if you're doing something on the road.
Like, who was it that somebody was fighting somewhere and they didn't have hot water and they couldn't make weight because they didn't have the bathtub?
Yeah, they were I think they were fighting in Brazil and there was no hot water for some reason like the hot water was down and they were like what in the fuck and they couldn't they went up not making weight.
I don't remember who it was.
I wasn't there for that event.
But I remember thinking like that is one of the real problems with doing some of these gigs on the road.
You know, you're traveling to these places and there's no fucking hot water.
If there's no sauna and no hot water, how are you supposed to make weight?
But that is what creates those heat shock proteins, is that your body realizes that it's in this terrible situation where you're way overheated.
So your body starts creating these anti-inflammatory proteins, and that's what's so good for your body.
They did a study, I think it was in, was it in Norway?
Dr. Rhonda Patrick brought it up on the podcast, that they showed a 40% decrease in mortality from all causes from use of daily sauna.
40% decrease in heart attack, stroke, cancer, everything, across the board.
It's unbelievably good for you.
Dang.
Yeah, it's because your body in reaction...
The response that your body has in reaction to that extreme temperature is just to create all these anti-inflammatory properties and that's just so good for your body.
Inflammation is just the root of so many different diseases and problems that we have.
What happens is, if they really got through your skin, you'd be dead.
They really got through.
But the idea is...
That your body produces these cold shock proteins in response to anything that's over or under 150 degrees below zero.
That's the sweet spot, apparently.
When you hit that 150 degree below zero, your body produces all these massive anti-inflammatory properties.
Because again, it thinks it's going to die.
So it's like freaking out.
And people with arthritis and people with severe autoimmune issues where they have a lot of inflammation, real problems with their joints and their hands, they have huge results from cryotherapy.
There's a bunch of people that go to my place that...
They say that it's really essentially changed their life.
They were just in pain all the time, and now they know all they have to do is go there, step in that thing for three minutes, leave, and they're going to feel better.
And they just feel looser and relaxed and whatever their flare-ups.
And instead of their condition deteriorating, their condition improved and stabilized.
And if I don't do that, I do hot yoga, which is another form of temperature manipulation, obviously, because you're 104 degrees, and you're there for 90 minutes sweating it out.
I mean, it's not as hot in the room, but your body absolutely has that same feeling that it has inside the sauna, where you're just like claustrophobic, or I gotta get the fuck out of here.
It's crazy because she, like, I was literally sitting in the locker room with her, like, we're giggling at UFC 222, like, because we're both, like, curvy, right?
And we're sitting in the locker room laughing about how much that shit weighs, you know?
And it's like, what can you do about that?
And even if you could, do you really want to, like...
I mean, I don't hate it, you know, but sitting in there and like laughing about it.
And that was what, what was the date of that?
March 3rd.
And then to come that much over, like she got her fight right away, announced right away, you know, that she was fighting May, what was it, 19th or something?
Well, Brazilians have immense national pride, you know, and her being a Brazilian and the daughter of a Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend and, you know, speaking perfect Portuguese and English, you know, just, I guess maybe that's the idea behind it.
Sometimes when I get around people, I feel bad because I try to be really empathetic.
And when I'm around foreigners, I will totally slow down my speaking so they will get it to the point where sometimes I think I look condescending.
You know, where I'm like, I just want this conversation to go as easy as possible for you because I'm already awkward and like, let me help you out, you know?
Yeah, my friend's wife is from Liverpool and she was trying to explain Scouse to me, like the way they talk in Liverpool versus the way they would talk in like say London.
I'm like, y'all sound like English to me.
You might as well be Australian.
I don't get it.
I get that you sound different than me.
I don't get what's happening though.
I don't get the accent.
Until like somebody like Darren Tills clearly has that Liverpool accent.