Ronda Rousey and Edmond Tarverdyan reveal how her UFC career began with chaotic training—sweaty, unshowered arrivals, and Edmond’s no-nonsense English lessons—while critiquing doping culture, like Cyborg’s alleged steroid use. Rousey’s disciplined 15-pound weight cuts and explosive conditioning (shadowboxing with dumbbells) contrast Tarverdyan’s tailored, injury-aware striking program, including armbar focus over leg locks. Their success hinged on her health, smart fight-day adjustments (e.g., exploiting Misha’s fatigue), and Edmond’s "ring generalship" philosophy, proving MMA dominance isn’t just about flashy moves but adaptability and sacrifice. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, it used to be that I had this car, the Fonda was my Honda, and it had one working window and no air conditioning, so I would just sweat all the way home.
So I would just put on my same, like, my clothes I came in with, no shower.
I would just throw it on, still sweating, and jump in my car, because I would just sweat all the way home, that's the point.
And Edmund's first word of advice was he made me shower before I got in the car.
Even if I would sweat all the way home and have to shower again, that was like, you're like, I know you're a very good girl and all these things.
I graduated high school, yeah, but during the classes, Armenian kids have to grow up.
The parents loved it because they go to school, speak English, and the parents would bring them to the gym after school programs and they would They want their kids to speak Armenian so they won't forget where they're from.
Teaching for 10 years, every day, 4 to 10, I was only speaking Armenian.
You have to find these contouring things where it starts with a girl with her face plain and they do all this contour stuff to them and they're an entirely different person by the end of it.
I saw this one thing, I don't know, it was on Instagram, so who knows if it was even true, that some guy sued his wife after they were married because he never saw her without makeup.
It's not in your DNA, and so, like, your children are going to have to deal with the same issues.
Like, whatever weird jaw structure thing, nose structure thing that you're going to get fixed with a doctor, are you going to get your kids snipped, too?
I think that there's like a line, like, you know, if you have like a cleft lip or something like wrong with you, you know, like go, you know, go for it.
But like if you're just self-conscious, you know, about something and then, you know, maybe you should just accept it that that's how you look, you know?
Yeah, but when you're a kid, when you're in high school, you're a teenager, you're going to hate everything pretty much about yourself for a while.
You know, you're like, oh God, you know, you're suddenly super self-conscious about all that.
And if it's like so calm and easily accessible, people are going to end up getting so much work done when they're kids and they're just being going through that stage when, you know, you should at least wait till you're...
Like, past 30 and you're like, you know, you've had a good three decades of not being happy with how that looks, then okay, fine, go for it.
But if you're a teenager and you're like, oh my god, my friend Allison has big boobs and I want to get implants, like, no, don't do it.
You're 18. You'll get over it.
You'll accept that, you know, itty bitty titty committee is pretty cool.
I think your happiness is supposed to be a byproduct of actually living a fulfilling life.
You know, instead of just trying to, you know, if I tried to get drunk and party every day and get as happy as I possibly could every day, you know, I'm going to live a really unfulfilling life and die unhappy.
The reality of happiness is happiness comes, at least in my feeling, it comes from achieving goals and conquering whatever weird shit you don't like about yourself.
Like whatever weird discipline issues you might have or behavior issues you might have and accomplishing goals.
Like there's something about setting goals, working hard on something and accomplishing those things that creates a real happiness.
The other kind of happiness comes from family and friends and loved ones.
Well, I mean, I think it's also about not being selfish and thinking about your kids, too, because we could all be as happy as possible.
You know, this generation, burn every resource we have, and all of our kids are going to starve, you know, in some post-apocalyptic world because everybody before him was just trying to be happy, you know?
Like, that's not really a good way to live, either.
You know, I want to know that my kids are going to be all right, and they're growing up in a better world than I did.
That's going to make me happier than knowing that I had a great time.
I used to think I was so laid back and chill, and my mom was just really intense, and then I realized just in comparison to her, I was really laid back and chill, and I'm actually pretty intense.
Well, if I remember correctly, we might have been medicated at the time as well.
There might have been some plant burning going on.
Speaking of Brazil, that experience, to me, that was one of the strangest experiences of all my years of calling fights.
It was one of the strangest experiences because it had sort of transcended just fighting.
It had gotten into this weird cultural place.
First of all, when we went there, it was the first time I sat in the audience for a weigh-in.
I never sat in the audience for a weigh-in before.
But when we got there, they had some dude that was a Brazilian guy that was going to do the weigh-ins because they wanted it to be in Portuguese.
So I sat down in the front row and I got to watch.
And one of the freakiest things about it was it was the first time ever, out of all the fights that I've ever called in Brazil, where the Brazilian got booed and the American got cheered.
And I was like, we've hit some weird tipping point here.
And it was strange to observe that.
I was like, when you went on stage, they were cheering you.
And she's got the Brazilian flag, and she's getting fucking crazy, and she's trying to get everybody on her side.
One of the Brazilian fans that loves Ronda, their whole family just comes to all the fights.
He's literally standing right behind that dude.
and he has it recorded so they gave me it through his phone you know he gave it to me you see the flag he gets it and throws it i'm like you stupid fuck keep your you know it's your country's flag i was wanting to see what happened afterward though i only saw you running away towards him like what happened when he got on it i wanted to grab him and choke him and then everybody held me back all the security .
When you walked around the cage after you knocked her out, it was one of...
I've seen guys win before, I've seen women win before, I've seen people win before, but I never saw anybody soak it all in the way you did when you walked around.
When she face-planted, you said, don't cry, and then you walked around like you strutted.
Around the octagon.
You, like, strutted and looked around at all those people.
Because usually it's just like, okay, I beat the person and then I have to not say anything stupid and then I have to drug test and do my medicals and then I have to do press conference and don't say anything stupid again.
And then I can eat something and relax.
And that was the first time I took, like, a moment to just, like, look at it.
There was so much emotion attached to that because the shit that she had said about suicide and connecting to your father and all that shit.
And, you know, and knowing you as long as I've had and having daughters and...
It was so emotional for me.
That was the closest I've ever come to crying while I was in it.
I might cry now when I was interviewing somebody.
It's because it was just...
It was so intense and it was also like...
I really knew that I was seeing history.
I know it's hard for you to talk about it because you're living it right now, but you're in the middle of history.
What happened there?
What's going on with you right now?
You're a part of some crazy movement right now.
It's not just sport.
It's like you're this very unique example for other women.
Like, that's never existed before.
There's never been a female combat sports athlete like you.
And when you went down to Brazil, knocked that girl out like that, and then were taking it all in.
It was so crazy.
I was so happy for you, and it was so crazy at the same time.
It was nuts.
The whole thing was such a strange moment.
There was a feeling in the air, and there was a recognition of what was happening that was very different for me than any other fight that I've ever called before.
I think people just are starting to recognize how solid she is as a human being, Ronda.
Every opponent she's faced, she keeps it very real, very intelligent, very professional, how an athlete should carry themselves, a person should carry themselves.
If you watch all the fights.
Misha didn't behave from the beginning.
There's a lot of things from the beginning.
She didn't do what she was supposed to do.
Bringing her forehead, you know, pushing during weigh-ins, stuff like that.
It's great building up, you know, a fight.
It's normal.
It's the fight business.
But afterwards, going complaining to the commission to fine somebody when you fight for a living, it's nonsense.
Well, I don't think we're really, like, I don't even think I'm going to really know what is going on right now or realize what is going on right now until afterward, you know, until it's all done.
And I can just try to do the best that I can in the moment, but I don't really think that any of us really comprehend what's going on right now until we're looking at it in hindsight.
And that's the kind of thing I think is kind of funny.
There's so many people that just live to hate me, but when I'm gone, they're going to miss me.
Disingenuous gesture for her to offer a handshake, because she never would have offered a handshake if she wasn't being watched by millions of people.
And I wouldn't have shook her hand if we were alone in the room or we had millions of people watching.
And the fact that I'm not going to play to the crowd, it would have been so easy to shake her hand and have everybody cheer, but I felt like it would have been dishonest and, you know, Honesty pays, but it pays very slowly, and it doesn't pay very consistently.
I think he had a contract, but he hadn't fought in so long.
The contract was supposed to default if they hadn't had him fight within that amount of time, so he was out of it.
But it was some sort of messy contract situation or whatever.
But he mentioned it to the other kids and It got back to their team and they called and set this up so that they would call right at the exact time he's about to go out and try to get Chris Beale pulled out.
Or at least mess with him enough to like have him not be fresh when he went in.
And just not keeping it real, you know, we had Dana come in and say, just leave, you know, promise me that everything will be normal and you guys won't be acting up anymore, this and that.
And the thing is, I could give them my number, they could always see me anywhere in the street, you know, and I told them that, you know, there's too many cameras.
Don't act like a little bitch in front of cameras.
You know, you guys could do that because, you know, Ronda doesn't want me to step out of line and kick your fucking ass right there.
They're going to take me out of there and, you know, I got to do this for all those kids, you know.
They don't understand shit like that so when a person doesn't sometimes you can't fucking That's the thing like if someone is like been purposely like trying to like Backhand and work against you do really really shady shit and then try to like play sweetheart to everybody else And then they try to play sweetheart again.
I'm not gonna trust you at all Why would you expect that and why it would be insults all the people that I love that you Insulted to shake your hand without an apology to them anyway Did you like doing that show because it seemed like you hated it?
It was one of the worst experiences I've ever, like, had to deal with.
The fact that I needed to be there for these kids so they would treat us however they wanted and I just felt like I'd never felt like that disrespected in my whole life and I had to sit and take it every day and I had to watch people that I really love and care about get disrespected every day and that was really hard that they were like putting up with it every day because of me and I just felt really really responsible for for everything but um I'm not even supposed to go on about it anymore.
I get in trouble every time that I talk shit about the Ultimate Fighter.
Do what I felt was the God-honest right thing to do, which would be not shake that hand.
And if everyone boos me for it, fine.
And there's going to be another situation where, you know, everybody else sees something one way, but it's really another way.
And I could either...
Prioritize my perception and image above everything and everyone and every moral that I have, or I could try and do the right thing and be honest and have people hate me for it sometimes.
But then whenever you have cameras and sometimes you show something and don't show the other, then they might, you know, people might think, what the hell just happened?
Like my situation with Dennis Holman, that guy's looking at me in the parking lot He's looking at me.
I'm looking at him.
He's looking at me.
Then he turns around and says, I said fucking bye.
I said, man, when you say bye, you don't use the fucking word fucking.
You know?
Have some fucking manners, you stupid idiot.
I'll teach you fucking manners.
You can't talk to me.
There's no way.
If there's no cameras, there's no way you could speak to me.
Well, those reality shows are very problematic when they edit things, and they also like to edit things out of context, so they'll take the reaction to something else and put it onto one thing.
Like, her old teammates tell me, like, yeah, she would walk onto the mat, and she'd be pissed off, and she'd throw the curl, and she'd beat the crowd at the armbar, and then walk off still pissed off.
She just had angry leftovers.
She was still angry.
It resolved nothing.
Oh my god.
Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.
I can only imagine if MMA was around when my mom was competing.
But Jennifer did end up, she said she'd never come to a fight again, but she came to Brazil because I was like, I'll take you guys all resorting after if you come.
And uniquely qualified to handle the pressure that comes with being famous too.
It's very weird how you handle it.
Even your perspective, like what you said about you don't even know what the fuck's going on while it's happening because it's going to take until it's over for you to look back and kind of understand it.
That's a very uniquely honest and perceptive view of what you're going through.
Well, I mean, I noticed a lot of these girls, like, they would like to win a UFC belt and have that respect, but they're not about that life.
Like, they don't want that life.
They don't want that attention and scrutiny and pressure and constant work and All those things.
They don't want it.
They want one thing without the other, but it all comes together.
And that's, I think, one thing that's kind of working against them is when they actually come in to fight me, they get a taste, like a small taste of what that life is going to be like when they're a contender.
Because it is like way more attention, way more this, way more that, way more that.
And once you win the belt, it's just doubled every single time.
It's more and more and more and more.
And I don't think any of them would actually be happy with that lifestyle.
Like, I see it from the outside, and it looks mind-boggling.
The pressure?
The media obligations?
The media obligations alone, which is something nobody considers.
But if you go on YouTube or you go on the internet and look at all the different interviews that you do up to a fight, or any of the world champions do up to a fight, it's fucking staggering.
I mean, you guys are constantly on the radio, constantly sitting down and doing TV interviews, constantly.
There's articles in Rolling Stone and in fucking all these different magazines.
He actually forced me to relax after this last camp, because usually I'm, like, back in the gym, like, two days after, because I just don't know what to do with myself.
And he, like, forced me to have 20 days off this time.
It's because the preparation, what you see during training camp and what kind of sparring partners you hire.
I don't do sparrings in my gym for Ronda.
Ronda doesn't have that striking experience, meaning competition experience.
So how could I get that?
I thought I should get that in the gym.
She has competition experience in judo.
She's in her competition.
We can't talk about that, how high level it is.
Boxing, you know, she doesn't have any amateur boxing fights or amateur kickboxing fights, anything like that.
So to get it, I would get great sparring partners for her in the gym.
And in the gym, when I get the great sparring partners, I see Rhonda Knocking out people from the liver shot, maybe 20-30 people for training camp.
Those girls are hired sparring partners, they get paid so, you know, or some of them are her sparring partners in the gym where I, you know, help them and I train them and I, you know, she knows, never charge them.
I work with them, you know, so I could build them, give them what they need to be a champion and she drops all those people in the gym.
I remember these pictures of like, yeah, me, you, and Manny were all at the gym at like 1 o'clock in the morning because we all went to dinner and we were so like amped up talking about fighting.
We were like, fuck it, let's go right now!
Let's go right now!
We were so like into fighting and, you know, you should see him go off on a tangent.
Because your striking has accelerated in these giant jumps.
Like every three or four months when I watch like you hit mitts, I'm like, what the fuck are they doing?
You don't see that kind of results from other fighters.
There's these giant leaps from the, if you go back to like, I saw you guys hitting mitts before the Liz Karmouche fight, and you go back to before the Betch-Cohea fight, you're like, fucking, they're so different.
It's shocking.
You're only talking about a few years, but there's a difference between like, Someone who's like, you know, got a decent understanding of how to throw punches to someone who looks like a fucking world champion kickboxer.
Right now, you know, there's a few females out there, you know, no disrespect, that are in the Olympic Games, that won Olympic gold medal I even told Rhonda about.
Girl, Reza, you know, she could box.
She won the Olympic boxing gold medal.
Like, a lot of respect to her.
She could definitely box.
She could punch.
Amazing champion in Olympic gold medals.
But professional boxing, her weight class won a 35-pounder.
I think it's a mix between how I was raised and never winning the Olympics.
That's like the best thing that's ever happened to me because now it's unlimited motivation forever because it's never going to be satiated.
I grew up as a little kid.
Even before I did judo, my dad convinced me, he's like, you're going to win the Olympics in swimming.
You're going to be an Olympic champion.
And then I switched to judo, so I was like, okay, I'm going to be an Olympic champion.
That's my whole life.
That was like my obsession, you know, and I went when I was 17 and It didn't go my way and then when I was 21 like I was so unhappy doing judo that I felt like that was like my last shot.
because just It got to a point where it's very old school kind of training where it's drilled into your head that you have to make yourself absolutely miserable in order to deserve to win.
And so it was just like I was miserable all the time.
I've recovered so much since coming to MMA. I was about to retire just because my knee was so bad in Judo.
Because I could barely walk some days.
I would wake up in the morning and it would take me 20 minutes to maneuver my knee enough so I could bend it again because it would lock in place in the middle of the night.
Just the people that I was around...
There was some of them that were cool, but mostly I had no control over who I lived with or who I was around all day long.
And so if you're around people that you don't really like constantly, you know, it's just kind of like you're always watching what you say and always looking over your shoulder.
You can never really relax.
And I didn't like where I lived.
And it was just the actual process of training, like the training itself wasn't fun at all.
And it wasn't meant to be fun at all.
And like from when I was a kid, from I think from I don't know, 2003 to 2006, 2002 to 2006, I cried every single practice and would lock myself in the locker room and cry for another half hour afterward.
And it was only like when I got older that I was able to shake myself from not crying during training because if it didn't go exactly my way, like if I had, if I got thrown once, you know, by someone who was 50 pounds heavier than me with five years more experience, I would still cry about it.
And like I wouldn't, then I'd be embarrassed that I was crying and I would cry because I was embarrassed because I couldn't stop myself from crying and like it would just keep going.
That's how Manny and all of them knew me when I was a kid.
My mom would bring me in there just to get beat up because they were really tough guys.
She would bring me to four or five different gyms a week to get all the different styles.
They would beat up on me and I would get thrown once.
First time I get thrown, immediately start crying, then get embarrassed, cry more.
But they were used to me crying.
I'd be able to finish the whole night and sometimes I'd be able to stop crying by the end of the night.
And that was, like, comfortable to me in a way because I didn't have to be embarrassed because they were used to me crying all the time.
And so they, like, accepted me like that.
And they didn't think I was a stupid little girl because I was crying during training.
And then it really sucked, like, moving to a different environment.
And then, oh, no, these people don't know that I cry.
I was at a point where I felt like every second of my day was somebody else's decision.
I am so grateful to my mother.
She's an amazing person.
She did the perfect job raising me.
I was kind of a stupid and short-sighted kid that I didn't realize how much she was doing for me at the time.
I had Rapunzel and the castle syndrome.
I thought, like, oh, well, it was me.
I'm locked in the castle, and my mom is so mean.
And now I'm like, oh, my God, she's a genius.
But, you know, at the time, yeah, I was recognized as having a lot of potential, very, very young, and was treated like that, you know?
I was, like, the prodigy kid, very young, and got really intense, really structured training very early on.
And, like, it just became a whole life.
Like, I didn't have, I never went to a single, like, dance or party in school.
I never went on a single date.
Like, I trained all the time.
And I dropped out of school sophomore year, so I could train all the time.
And that was, like, my life.
And then I felt like my life was, like, out of my control.
And so I left and was like, well, I'm going to win, and I'm going to do this stuff on my own.
And I'm going to show everybody they actually know what I'm talking about.
Because I felt like my opinion and no one had any respect for what I thought.
And I was always doing what everybody else said I should be doing.
And so I went off and I bounced around a bunch of different clubs.
It was a very crazy time where I was moving cities like every couple of months.
And then after 2006, I was like the first American woman in nine years to win a World Cup in Judo.
With no coach.
I did it with no coach.
And then I also, I won in Sweden and I medaled in Finland when, you know, Americans were getting their asses kicked.
They weren't meddling.
They weren't getting past the first round.
And so, like, I was kind of my way to get respect from everybody else was...
And then I ended up moving to Canada because I was like, fuck all the U.S. coaches.
I'm going to do this on my own.
And I was just...
I was...
At the National Training Center there, where they couldn't coach me, but I was beating their girls, so they were like, yeah, well, come here, and they'll get used to you, and whatever, so I was just kind of like a body for them.
And I was pretty much on my own, training on my own, with no direction and no coaching, and I was like...
I was just like so stubborn and not getting enough respect that I felt like I was gonna go win with nobody's help and then ended up getting asked back to one of the gyms I was kicked out of when I was a kid.
I was kicked out once because, I don't know, my old coach's wife didn't like my mom.
I don't know.
They were having an argument.
Then the last time I got kicked out was I was at the German Super A and I lost.
I remember first round, I was fighting this girl from Finland and I was ahead by a Yuko, which is a decent score.
And there was like 40 seconds left and I threw her with an Ochigari, which you don't know what that is.
I pretty much fall into the guard, and my arm is out, and then I just ended up in the armbar right away.
I got armbarred.
But my elbow, like, dislocated right away.
So this 18-year-old little me, my brain is going, and I'm like, well, I was about to turn 18. I was like, yeah, almost there.
I'm like, well, my elbow's already out, you know, so I might as well just try to get out, right?
And so I try to get out, and my elbow goes back in, and then she pops out again, and I'm thinking, like, well, she already popped it out twice.
I can't just let it do it twice.
I ended up getting out and ran the clock out and I won the match.
But then immediately right after, I fought this chick, Lucy DeCasse, who was a world Olympic champion from France, and I couldn't even lift my arm from my side.
I had to pick my hand up to pull it up to my side to fight.
And then I lost to her, and then I fought this German girl next, and I still couldn't even lift my hand up.
And I would, like, bring my hand up, and I ended up winning that fight against a German girl.
And then I ended up fighting Erske Zolnir, who's a World Olympic bronze medalist.
And it was a closer fight, but I lost.
And so I was all bummed out.
And I was talking to my, like, first boyfriend at the time, which was, like...
You know, I never had a date, never had a partner, nothing in high school, right?
And so, like, I'm a 17-year-old girl about to be 18, and this guy in his 20s that's, like, on the national team, like, has a thing for me, you know what I mean?
Like, I thought, like, I was so cool because, like, I was talking to this guy, and of course, you know, my mom and my coaches were totally against it, and they were like, you're not allowed to talk to him, da-da-da-da, and, you know, of course I would talk to him anyway.
And so we were seeing each other for a while.
I ended up seeing this guy for, like, two years, actually.
unidentified
But I went back to the hotel and was like, screw this, I hate you!
And then I went home and my mom's like, you know, you're not going to do judo for a year and you better forget the name of whatever his name was and you're going to work and you're going to support yourself and you're going to pay me this amount of money to live in my house.
And I'm thinking, I'm like, well, I want to do judo and if I want to work...
I'm going to go pay for my rent wherever I want.
This is what I'm thinking.
And so that night, I used to get Social Security checks because of my dad.
He died.
And so I went and opened a big account, and I rerouted the Social Security checks to go into my account.
And then I had to get dentist stuff done, so I scheduled dentist things so I'd still be under my mom's insurance.
And then I got myself a plane ticket with the Social Security money to be right after my last dentist appointment.
Yeah, and like in the middle of the night, like I secretly packed my bags and all this stuff and like I waited until like 2 o'clock in the morning or whatever to like walk several blocks away from the house and then call the taxi several blocks away from the house and then took the taxi to the airport.
It's such an old sport where it's, like, Bushido martial arts, and they're, like, thinking, like, all the way Sensei Kano.
I mean, they would still do this thing.
I don't know what it was like.
What was it called?
Something training.
This wooden kind of training in Japan or like in the winter where they'd open all the windows and there'd be frost on the mats and they would purposely make you freezing cold while you train, which is terrible for you.
But it would be like, you know, old school mentality, mental toughness, you know, that kind of stuff.
And they would always do like more is more for them.
More is more and more is more.
And yeah, I was so constantly overtrained all the time.
And constantly cutting weight and not having any way to actually make weight healthily.
No tools, no education, anything.
Just getting weighed every week and being yelled at for being too heavy.
I used to get weight every Tuesday, and then I would not drink any water after Monday practice, and I wouldn't eat dinner to try and be lighter, and I would still be too heavy.
And then, you know, then I would eat all the Tuesday.
That's got to fuck with you and give you body image issues when you're young and someone's telling you you're too heavy and they're yelling at you about that.
Yeah, 16 year old girl and being told that you're too fat or should you be eating that all the time, constantly.
I thought, unless I weighed exactly 63 kilograms, I was ugly for the longest time.
Yeah, it took a while to get over.
That's why, like, I'm so big into, like, doing, like, body image stuff and, like, the Do Nothing Bitch, like, shirts, they all went to D.D. Hirsch, which is, um, it's, like, free, like, mental, like, mental health clinic that's, like, 52 different schools around L.A. that helps girls with, you know, body image and eating disorders and suicidal, like, all these different things to, like, to give, like, those kids treatment because I didn't have anyone to talk to.
I didn't even really know that I had that much of a problem.
I think when you're in a developmental phase, it's a good thing to be overtrained a little bit and be made uncomfortable and, you know, to have to run laps when your foot's broken.
Yeah, but when you're at a professional level and this is the time you need to perform, whatever personality you've developed is already developed by now, then it's time to train professionally.
Like we've had situations and sparring sessions like if one of my guys or anybody gets caught with a punch you know they take a knee I relax you know there's always another day you don't need that extra punishment to the head it's not healthy for you right some people don't understand that they push their fighters They get dropped and it's happened to, you know, even with Champ, her opponent gets dropped and they keep on pushing.
Oh, she's okay.
Go one more.
Boom.
Dropped again.
Go one more.
That's not healthy.
You know, you have to know where to push, how to push.
But she's absolutely right about young age.
Sometimes you want to create that personality, not giving up.
And the only way to do it is you got to Be a little bit old-school and hard on them, you know, and she's had that but now it's she has that you do it more professional more structured better, you know Sparring is the right way sparring partners.
Everything is done for her and she loves it.
That's why she loves it That's why she says she didn't like that and now she loves this.
Well, she seems to want you to fight her at a heavier weight, which is very fascinating to me.
Because, you know, she knows that you're the 135-pound champ, and she wants, and she knows you fought at 145 before, so she wants you to fight where she is.
Like, if you can make weight and be on steroids, even if it's a relatively making weight-friendly steroid, you're still, like, Without it, you're capable of moving down.
You see what happens to people when they get off of steroids.
It's a fascinating time when you see these guys that were on TRT or the people that were involved in the urine testing, which was like they would say is basically an intelligence test.
If you test after your fight and you're on steroids, you're a fucking idiot.
It's that simple.
But you could cycle all the way up until right before your fight if you're using the right stuff, cycle off of it, weigh in, fight.
Get your drug test and still test clean.
And so you're not really clean.
You were never clean.
You were just clean enough to pass that test.
But your body still had all the effects of those steroids.
You can't do that anymore.
This Jeff Nowitzki guy is not fucking playing games.
And the testing that they're implementing on these athletes is no joke.
I mean, they're going to show up at your fucking house.
And yeah, I mean, you get thick and muscular from hard work, but boy, the change is so radical.
It's such a giant difference.
And to see, I mean, men can put that kind of size on through power lifting and hard weight, but to see a woman put that kind of size on, that kind of thickness.
Well, one of the big concerns with me is the lack of, when they're trying to take out the IVs.
And I understand why they're doing it, because they're trying to stop people from masking, doping.
Like, Nowitzki came on my podcast and explained it to me, that there's been instances where people used IV bags.
Yeah, it flushes your system out, and somehow or another can mask you.
And also, blood doping.
And blood doping is totally legit.
They've used it in cycling for years, where you take your blood out, your body replenishes the blood, and you put that blood back in right before you fight.
I know that people have done that before.
What's shocking to me is that the UFC and Nevada State Athletic Commission, just a few years ago, wasn't even testing for EPO. It wasn't that long ago.
It was less than a decade.
EPO wasn't something that they tested for, which is crazy.
If anything relies on endurance, it's a critical factor in endurance.
It's fighting.
It's one of the most critical factors.
Because if you're running in a race and you're slower because you're tired, you don't get kicked in the face.
I don't know but I just remember I got chills like I couldn't stop myself from shivering and like I was really really slow and sluggish and I absolutely hated it.
What you're saying is it's too much of a difference when they go down so low, then they want to gain it.
The only way is to stick an IV in there so you can gain that weight quicker.
But I think 24 hours is enough for you.
If you could raise your hand and drink water, I think IV is for people that when they're sick and, you know, they're throwing up and they can't, like, move, they're exhausted, you, you know, stick a needle in there so they could recover.
But if you're having a terrible weight cut and you're really worried about this fight, it really helps put your mind at ease if you think, oh, no, no, it's fine.
I'll have an IV and it's like the magical cure and it's like this bad weight cut never happened.
Yeah, you have to think about why does your body only absorb water back as fast as it does?
Why does it expel that much and only keep so much?
Because that's what's best for it.
It does it that way because it's best for it, not because, you know, it's suddenly just, you know, while it was evolving, it was like, eh, this is the best I could do.
No, but it understands that, like, you know, you're living in Africa and there's not that much water and, you know, there could only be one day of rain and, you know, it could all dry up the next day and you need to drink as much as possible and then you're shit out of luck out of water for a while.
You know, these kind of situations happen for many, many, many years and why do we only rehydrate as fast as we do?
You know, Weidman's well over 200 pounds, gets down to 185. I think during the training, if they do the training right and they see where he's sharp at, how they could deal with it, you know, if you're mentally tough, you could gradually just drink throughout the day.
To play devil's advocate, though, Rafael Dos Anjos in his last fight against Anthony Pettis, he pushed them all in the most ferocious paces I've ever seen for a five-round fight.
And he went through an extensive strength and conditioning program with Nick Kurson, one of the guys who was a disciple of Marv Marinovich.
And I had Kurson on the podcast explaining to me all the different stuff they had to do, a lot of plyos, a lot of explosive drills.
Yeah, a lot of people think that lifting, in fact, slows you down and provides you with an unnatural workload on your muscles, which fucks you up in training.
Because, like, if you do bench press all the time, like, your chest is all fucked up and sore, so that way when you're training, you're going to have this issue.
You're sore and you're all ripped up.
Your chest is, you know, is all filled with lactic acid and...
He was physically amazingly fit, and I know the guy you're talking about.
He did a hell of a job, but it's the training also.
Rafael Cordero did an amazing job with his tactical approach to it.
There is all of it combined, but he knew that he needs to win that fight, not only with the tactical aspect of it, with the physical ability, with the conditioning.
So he did his job right.
When you have an athlete, You need to know what you need to do to make that athlete into the best.
Ronda is the quickest, fastest, and the strongest fighter.
We're talking about Cyborg here.
Ronda, with one hand, will toss around Cyborg.
She won't know where she is, even at 145. The problem is it has to be fair, a fight.
And we do it pure.
She's never, you know, done anything unfair when it comes down to sports.
And she fought at 145, like I said before, is because she would walk around 148. People wouldn't want to fight her.
So we said she could jump in and fight tomorrow.
For her to get experience, because she was always training, but nobody would want to fight her.
So when they call you one day before for a fight, would you be willing your fighter to fight at 135 when you're walking around 148 or 145?
Of course 145. Why would you lose all that weight in one day?
Pretty much the lightest that I could get without, you know.
I can't lose any more fat when I'm at like 43. And then like the last like eight pounds has to be water because that's just you know I just can't get any smaller than that.
That's when you get like super lean like right before the weigh-ins and If you have you ever Consider I mean, what do you think about the idea of fighters not cutting any weight at all?
I mean it seems to be Almost unnecessary evil at this stage of the game, but I really wish it weren't.
And I really would like to see fighters just fight at whatever is the healthiest weight for them.
After all that work and all that perfect food and perfect training and perfect peaking and it's all done and it's all been fine-tuned so I could be the best that is physically possible for a human form to be for this 24-hour period that I have.
I'm perfectly peaked.
It feels fucking amazing.
And I don't think I could get that feeling without cutting the 35 first.
What was it like when you guys first started working together?
I mean she was describing it like you knew that she was a judo player and she was getting into MMA like what was like the first couple of training sessions like?
When she came in I didn't want to train her because I had my hands full and I had you know I was working with all of them and I was like, what is this girl doing?
You know, what is she going to do with this?
Is she serious?
Is she not?
And I don't like to jump into things.
I like to wait until it's the right time.
Timing, I feel like for me, is the most important thing that I've learned throughout my career.
You know, I opened up a gym when I was 16 years old.
And doing all this I learned that patience sometimes and timing is very important because in my life I went through a lot of hard days because I was a kid myself didn't understand what I'm getting into and I've been through a lot of tough days so I like to stay patient and just watch and see figure out what the person wants to do with their life and then I could guide them if I can I will if I can't I'll give them A pointer you know you could do it better with this person or you do it this way and some listen and some don't we know that.
Ron is an amazing student.
I figured that out right away because within the three four months she was in my gym I would tell her go stay on the bag and she would go hit the bag and really hit the bag until I paid attention to her again.
She would have a lot of patience and she would be understanding and she would work very hard but after like three four months being in the gym I gave her maybe a few pointers and then When they called me, they called me literally the day that they got her an amateur fight.
So the manager called me and was like, hey, we got a fight for Ronda.
Are you in the area?
Do you think you can come through?
I don't know what hit me, but I was like, maybe I should respect this girl.
She's an Olympic medalist and...
Everybody's talking about Ronda's Olympic medalist, you know?
She's a cool girl, this and that, Manny.
And I was like, maybe I should go check this girl out.
I went to the locker room, I wrapped her hands.
I saw she was excited that I was there, you know?
I wrapped her hands and I said, hey, keep your hands up, you know?
And I remember she was so squared instead of being in an angle.
And I was like, okay, yeah.
And then I was like, You know, she's gonna kick you, doesn't matter, kick, punch, whatever comes, just keep your hands up high and let's just step forward right away, you know, break the distance and get inside a clinch and do what you're best at.
And right when I told her that, her focus, the way she looked at me and, you know, I knew that she was a fighter, but I was like, let her get in there first, you know, let me, till I see this girl, yeah, so I could see it.
Speed, power, explosiveness, without even having that top level of training.
The way she did it, I knew she was a real athlete, real fighter.
So I was coming back and I text the manager, I was like, give me the name and last name of this girl, spell it out for me.
You didn't know my last name.
Yeah, besides that, I didn't even speak English well, so how could I write it?
I was like, what happened there?
So he texted it to me.
I didn't look that day.
Next day was like maybe 3 p.m.
I went online.
I pressed her name.
It became amateur debut, Ronda Rousey, and it had already like 100,000 views.
I was like, what the hell just happened, you know?
We just fought.
How is that possible, 100,000 views?
And I was like, okay, this girl has a following.
Then I started looking at her judo fights, all her matches, and it was interesting.
I knew that she was a real fighter because of her attitude, her approach to fighting.
And, you know, I don't understand judo at that point, especially I didn't understand much about it, but You know, I have a vision.
I've done all kinds of martial arts growing up.
And I knew what's a technical fighter only.
What's a fighter that has the attitude to fight?
What's a fighter that's born to fight?
You know, so she had all the pluses.
But I knew that it could be way better done.
Why?
Because right away I knew that, hey, USA Judo, you know, it's amazing what Anna Marie did with Ronda Rousey.
It's phenomenal being in this country with judo not being such a strong sport in the United States and all the gyms she took her to and all that guidance made her into something special.
It's an amazing job.
But I said it could be done, you know, boxing and in U.S. boxing is huge and I said if we train With that concept and keeper judo, this girl is going to be unreal.
I started working with her.
It was amazing.
No, no, no, no.
Oh, no, then we bumped heads, yeah.
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Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I remember going home to my ex, he was my boyfriend at the time, and just bitching about how Edmund would not spend any time on me.
At all.
Even though, yeah, we already had her blow up and he was spending, oh my god, I would go home every night.
I would go home every night and I would be like, he's still, you know, I'm there and I ask him and he's just like, you know, I don't know, he's paying hard to get or like, what is this?
He's like paying all attention to all these other people almost intentionally just rubbing my face and he's not paying attention to me and like, oh my god.
I got up really early that morning so I could go to Alberto Crane's gym and spar.
They did MMA sparring in the morning, right?
From like 8.30 to like whatever.
9.30.
It was like 8.30 to 10. They had a workout.
But I left early at 9.30 so that I could get to the gym in time at 10 to be able to be there to bug Edmund into holding events for me because he wouldn't.
He still hadn't at that point, but every day I would ask, can he hold it to me?
He's like, no, I'm busy.
Can he hold it to me?
No, I got this thing.
Can he hold it to me?
No, I got this thing.
And every single day, the excuse got worse and worse and worse.
Until I didn't have an excuse.
Yeah, and so that day, I left sparring early so that I could be there.
I'm wrapping my hands.
I'm sitting behind the desk.
I'm all like, okay.
I'm going to...
Pretty much, right when he gets in the door, I'm going to ask him again.
Because that's like my thing now.
And he comes in the door, and I'm like, Hey, Edmund, can you hold Mitch for me today?
And he goes, I don't want to sweat in this shirt.
And walks off.
Just like that.
Like that.
unidentified
And I looked at him, and I went, This is fucking bullshit!
Yeah, if I, like, had to go anywhere, you know, like, in the evening, I wasn't gonna let her, like, die of heat stroke or anything.
If it was, like, the weather was fine, she would come with me everywhere.
And then, like, I had a basket system in my car where I had, like, I would just bring my basket of, like, clean clothes and put it next to an empty basket.
And then after training, I would put all the other clothes and all the dirty clothes in one basket.
And then when the clean clothes basket was empty, I would wash the other one and, like, had this rotating basket thing.
My dog is just obsessed with the smell of my vagina.
I don't know why, but she would just go through all of it.
Whenever she was in the back, she would rip all of the dirty clothes out, put them all over the chair, just rub my old sweaty underwear that had been sitting there all over her face.
It was her favorite thing in the world.
Just sweaty pants and underwear and bras everywhere and dog hair and all that stuff.
Edmund is like OCD clean.
You want to know why that pen is straight?
unidentified
Because he was probably like that earlier and he already went like that and straightened it out.
It's a very fascinating position to be a coach because a coach relies a hundred percent on having a quality student.
If you're a great coach and you're around people that don't give a fuck and don't train hard, don't care, your knowledge is like, it doesn't ever get to them.
It doesn't ever get out there, and no one can ever see what you're truly good at.
You and I had this conversation once after a fight, and you were saying that all my years of training fighters, who would have ever thought that it would be this woman that would be, like, the greatest student?
Yes, I give the whole program, and I say when we're grappling, when we're using her judo, Know when to use the judo, like speed week, when to bring in those sparring partners, what kind of sparring partners, how many days a week she does her strength and conditioning or sparrings, you know?
But she's boxing and strength and conditioning, so she's learning always.
I know her mentally, what she needs to do to be dominant, you know?
So sometimes people that don't have so much experience, they will work on certain things during certain time of the training camp that it's unnecessary to work on that.
You know, because you could do that at times that when she's off, she doesn't have a training camp.
She doesn't have a fight.
So I understand.
That's why sometimes it was so difficult to teach her everything in boxing and to progress earlier.
The reason was Ronda could have done that is because we had fights in front of us.
So when we have fights in front of us, we specifically work on that opponent and what she needs to do.
I didn't show her how to throw an overhand right or anything like that until the Alexis Davis fight.
She knocked her out.
You know, I told her straight shots.
Those are the best for you to back them up, get that clinch, you know?
You don't want those big overhand shots and we could stop all of those with a great jab.
You know, you work your way inside with a jab in boxing.
You work your way out.
If you don't want anybody to come inside, you keep that jab out there and they'll have a hard time.
So it's a simple concept.
A lot of footwork, you know, utilizing the distance, right?
And you see how she gets the clinch.
You know, if you watch Liz's fight, short, stocky girl throwing hard short shots, the way she maneuvers and uses that jab, gets under that elbow, it's beautiful.
No, because I was, people don't know, I did, I have like 40 professional Muay Thai fights.
You know, after doing Muay Thai, I did shoot boxing.
I fought in Japan, throws.
So I was used to all that.
I did Taekwondo matches, all those international, Jimmy Keem, all those fights.
So I have experience in all kinds of martial arts, but then fell in love with boxing, you know, polished my hands and, you know, trained with the best.
And putting it all together, it's not.
A fight is a fight.
You've got to understand.
It's not only about the fight.
You've got to understand what you have as a trainer.
I know what I have.
I know what abilities she has.
And, you know, I know Ronda's personality.
I know what they're going to be trying to do.
This last fight she knows, I said, Ronda, the way you're punching right now, everybody's going to try to push you off them.
Or, they're going to be desperate for them to clinch.
Before, you would want to go clinch.
But now you're going to clip them so hard, guess what?
They're going to try to come and clinch you.
And when they're doing that, you either counter take down, which you can do, Or you keep on punching them.
Counter punch or push them off.
Knock their ass out.
What happened?
She was punching her.
What did she want to do?
She couldn't take those shots.
She came to grab Ronda.
Ronda pushed her.
Kneed her.
Jumped on her again.
Fight was over.
But that we understood as we're seeing progress.
Because when I'm seeing the sparring partners, we have a boxing world champion sparring with Ronda.
Ronda's on her, hitting her.
And this girl's like, holy shit, trying to get inside to close.
Doing it at this level, you have to have that fighter.
You have to love that fighter.
You have to care about that fighter.
You have to understand that fighter.
That's why she lets me write the whole structure, but I'll tell you, she's intelligent.
Why?
Because there has been choices she's made or said, hey, coach, you know, we should go work with Henner and Hiron, you know, because just to understand their tactical approach to fighting where they're on their back, I will never lie down on my back.
And then I brought Martin Berberian, which is an Olympic, three-time Olympian, bronze medalist.
So we added, like I added one, she added Henra and Hirona and she was like just for me to understand the approach.
To their style.
And then now, when we go, she understands that when they're on their back and being passive, judokai is not going to lie down on their back.
You know, you lose that weight.
But they do, jujutsu does, and just for her to be aware of that.
And I said, Ronda, you're brilliant.
Let's go to them, and we'll do it once a week, twice a week, so you could understand their approach to grappling, and then we'll know how to take advantage of that.
Yeah, but leg locks, when you bring striking into it, It's very different because it's very risky in that when you go for a leg lock, if it doesn't work out, you lose position.
And I may have to think a lot more about risk.
And that's why I feel like arm bars work so well is because if it doesn't work out, I'm still on top.
I can still be somewhere positive.
If I go for a leg lock, I'm suddenly on the bottom.
Top level Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitor right now.
Trains under John Donaher.
And John Donaher apparently has a very complex and comprehensive system involving attacking legs and leg locks.
He's one of Henzo Gracie's black belts.
Really, really respected Jiu Jitsu guy.
And Eddie was talking about...
He just competed in Abu Dhabi and he was talking about...
Bringing leg locks to MMA and that you are seeing many more leg locks in MMA now because guys are learning the like at the highest level that the transitions it's like a lot of times we have these looks at things we go well that's not gonna work because of this and people might have said that about all sorts of different aspects of MMA before someone came along and figured out a way to do it successfully I'm not discounting like leg locks at all I'm just saying they're risky and then again it's the ability of the fighter What ability do you have?
Like when she does with Henor and Hiron, you know, during training camp, she's not gonna, one month before the fight, lie down on her back and try to do triangles.
Do you train those things, like, do you learn, like, specific skills outside of a training camp?
So, like, when the training camp's over, you know, you knock out Betch-Cohea and you go, ah, I'd like to learn how to do this, or I'd like to add a little bit of that to my game.
Yeah, yeah, you just do, you learn stuff without a particular direction when you're outside of camp, and camp is what directs it towards something specific.
Now we got Justin Flores, you know, he comes in, the judo, the explosive throws.
We know that judo is all about timing and explosive, and she loves it when she uses that, knowing when to do that.
You know what I mean?
But if she does that right now, when we're just starting off and quick explosive throws, her body is not ready, like you were saying about strength and conditioning.
People do that so they could prevent injuries, right?
For you not to have your joints hurting, this and that.
The best of your ability to get the W. It's about the W. People make the mistake of trying to memorize certain things, like separate things that are completely disjointed and not related, as opposed to memorizing concepts.
When I'm grappling, I probably make up 15 different moves a night that I've never done before, just off the top of my head because it makes sense right there.
I'm just applying the concepts to every kind of situation I could end up in.
I don't memorize every single individual move.
It doesn't make sense.
I'm not gonna memorize a leg lock and then memorize a spinning back elbow and then memorize a push kick and memorize, you know, something else that's completely a Superman punch.
Like, they're completely all over the place and they have nothing to do with each other.
They're not connected.
Why am I spending so many hours of my day on all these different things that they're not connected to each other?
And so I spend a lot of my time Connecting things as opposed to trying to learn individual things that don't have anything to do with the other.
It's the most important thing in boxing and fighting in general.
You can't be in the middle of the octagon, walk 10 steps and hit your back on the cage and then expect to learn a superman punch and become something special.
You've got to learn ring generalship first.
There's more to fighting.
People just, you know, know it, have an idea, and there's coaches out there that think, oh, they could show a fancy jumping kick or a punch or whatever it is, or a throw, and become something special with that.
The beginning of the third round, she was out on her feet with a straight right, and I knew it because of the way she was breathing.
When I put her up against the cage, I felt she was deflated.
She wasn't there anymore.
So I knew I could do whatever kind of bullshit throw in the world.
Even if I could be on the bottom, it's still going to work right then because she's not there.
And the idea in that fight, the structure of the fight that he put out is you're going to break her first standing, and then the submission will be easier because they're going to be so focused on the submission You have to get their minds somewhere else before you go for it.
And so at that point, I knew that she wasn't there because you have to have a feel for the other person and know them very well.
You have to know them so intimately.
You know that if they're breathing differently, you know where their mind is at.
And that's the time I can do the shittiest sumigaiishi that you've ever seen and be straight on the bottom and know that I'm going to finish her from there because she's not defensively there at all.
And we know when she wins, you know, so quick, no injuries, training healthy, happy, smart, intelligent, back-to-back wins, she could fight three fights a year, you know?
It's not only that, but I still keep on saying it.
It's because she had the movies, right?
So first time going to a big movie of her career and dealing with all those big actors and she kept her weight very low and I wasn't there because I had Nonitos and Vic's fight.
Donner's fight.
And I couldn't go there to help her out during training camp.
When she came back...
Rhonda, you know, because she always...
I do her hand wraps and she, you know, works on the bag and her hands...
No, I trained a lot, but I couldn't do any impact on my hands because I punched too hard for my hands.
I have the smallest hands in the UFC. I have tiny fragile little hands like the even like my thumb bone like is like abnormally small.
Yeah, and So I can't hit unless he he professionally wraps my hands with gauze and tape every single training session and I can't hit any other way.
My hands will like explode pretty much.
And so I was training really hard.
I was running up mountains and I was wrestling and I was, you know, doing all these things and everything that I could, but I wasn't having any impact on my hands.
I was shadow boxing with the weights.
I was doing everything I could, but yeah, I couldn't land anything.
And so I got home and all the skin comes off my hands.
But I'm like, okay, I have to leave for Fast and Furious in a few days.
So fuck it.
I'm just gonna punch like this.
And so it's just open wounds.
I'm just punching open wounds for five days straight until I literally had a crater on this one hand.
And I'm just like, okay, well, it'll heal while I'm at Fast and Furious.
And I'll come back.
It'll be fine.
Because me, I'm thinking, oh, it's just a scrape.
It's whatever.
And then I come back and it never heals the whole camp.
We just keep putting neosporin and peroxide in it.
And I just have like...
Like a crater in my hand and it keeps falling off and the whole thing falls off and it gets bigger every time.
Every time it falls off it's bigger and it's deeper and I start to see like the little like the fat like beads because it's like that like deep.
Like I would look at it sideways and there would be a dent.
Inside and then it would heal and then there'd be a huge lump and then they would, whatever it was inside would burst.
I was getting a ganglion cyst on my knuckle.
That's what it was.
And so I finally like healed up enough where I could fight, you know, like, but I had to like not punch on it really at all or else it would rip right off.
And I remember right before the fight, I told Edmund, I was like, this knuckle on my right hand, I'm like, I'm going to plant it right on her face, I promise you.
I ended up actually knocking her out with the straight right.
But then I couldn't get anything done about it.
Because then I had to go straight to McMahon.
And then with McMahon I did two camps back to back.
Now my knee is fucking up because I'm doing two camps back to back and I can't take that much punishment all the time.
And my knuckle is still super fucked up.
And I'm like, whatever.
And it keeps ripping off and trying to heal it back.
And ripping off and trying to heal it back.
And ripping off and trying to heal it back.
And so we get through the McMahon fight and I was going to get surgery.
I was going to get my hand and my knee worked on.
But then Dana's like, listen, you could fight Gina in February.
I mean, in February, in December.
And I was like, well, I don't want to wait till December.
I'll be a better fighter in December if I fight in July.
I don't want to be sitting ring rust that long.
Because I ring rusted for the Misha fight and I didn't feel good.
So I'm like, I want to stay active in that time.
So give me a fight right away.
So I was like, okay, I'm going to fight Alexis Davis.
But I felt like, even right before the Davis fight, I was like, I feel like I could just rip it off right now and pull it out.
But I couldn't do it because I was about to fight and I couldn't do that to my hand.
I just couldn't wait to get this thing out.
I felt like it was in there.
It was itchy almost.
And then, yeah, the first overhand right I ever threw in a fight, I threw it right on Alexis' head and the whole thing exploded, like, down to the bone, like, from the inside of my knuckle all the way out.
They never got good footage of it because I didn't want my mom to see it because she was, like, all, you know, really nervous and worried for me when I'm doing MMA. And so there's like this tiny bit of footage that Elliot got where I'm like holding my hand away from my mother and he's like looking around the corner.
You never saw it.
It was down to the bone all the way around my hand and the whole thing blew up.
We still have the wrap.
The wrap is covered in blood.
But that's how you get rid of a ganglion cyst.
You have to like burst it.
And so it was actually gone once we did that and I sewed it up.
And then I was like, oh, cool.
You know, that's what it was.
I thought my hand hurt.
And then I realized a couple days later I broke my thumb and I was walking around with my hand out and I ended up having to have a pin put in and all that stuff.
So I just have fragile little hands.
I have a great chin, but fragile little hands.
I'd rather have it that way than the other way around.
Yeah, so that's my knuckle chronicle.
And then I ripped it open before the last camp because of the stupid...
Was it commercial?
No, the promo commercial.
And then I hurt my pinky during the Budweiser commercial.
I didn't hurt anything else during the camp at all.
I got hurt doing like the two commercials right beforehand.
It's one of the big problems that people don't think about when they watch fights, if they're casual observers, is what fighters are going into camp with, kind of nagging injuries.