Name: Joe Pyfer Gets Candid About Overcoming an Abusive Household
Uploaded: 2024-01-18T19:25:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Pyfer Gets Candid About Overcoming an Abusive Household' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Pyfer Gets Candid About Overcoming an Abusive Household' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-18. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- My life got real tough once I got to,
like once I left home.
So my parents divorced at 15,
like I testified I never wanted to see my mom again,
and then I left with my dad, yeah.
So, you know, the other branch of that story
is you got the abuse from at least my earliest memory
of like four and a half, five years old,
and then until 15 years old, then we leave.
I go to PA with my dad because my mom basically hated my guts.
I was a, it was like, it was such a divided family.
It was the girls and my mom that we lived like the farm life.
Like I grew up a farm boy and against like my dad
and the fighter, right?
Like, like I was a puppet and, you know,
I just mimicked everything that he said, but you know,
I chose my dad because I didn't want to lose wrestling
or jujitsu or boxing and everything.
But then when I got up- - The things that were giving you meaning.
- But then when I got up to PA,
he had already had a girl he was laid up in
that it was like, that's all that mattered to him.
And then she worked, he doesn't work.
You know what I mean?
So he found somebody to prey on, to manipulate, to do his thing.
And then it was like, I don't need my kid no more
after I went to court.
And like, you know, I didn't understand the consequences
of testifying, testifying in court against your mom
and being dragged to court out of school and that humiliation.
And you know, I didn't talk to my, my mom and my sisters
for years and we, we don't talk currently.
We haven't talked since before I got in the UFC.
And we haven't talked since before I broke my arm.
- Wow.
- Because I knocked my sister's boyfriend out
for being a meth head.
- Oh Jesus.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it is what it is.
But, but yeah, man.
I mean, once I moved up to PA, I got, that was the worst.
Like that short span from 15 to like 18 was like, man,
like I was ready to, I was out.
- So where were you staying during that time?
- So I stayed in media PA.
I lived in, I lived in, it's Pennsylvania,
but it's like 25 minutes outside of Philadelphia.
So it's like the suburb city.
Honestly, it's like a bougie, it's not bougie,
but it's like a townie, nice town.
And you know, everything was new to me.
I came from a school of 330 kids.
I got into high school.
I was in a school of like 1600 kids.
It cost four grades,
but they were all like preppy fuckers.
Like the kids down in South Jersey where I grew up,
they were, they were all fighting each other,
like beating each other up, jumping each other after school.
Up here, everybody would talk shit and nobody would fight.
So it was like a weird, it was a weird thing for me to adjust.
I didn't have friends.
I didn't have a phone like until I started getting a job.
And yeah, man, it was weird.
It was really weird.
I lived in a two bedroom apartment and my dad,
his girl at the time, like he's married to now.
And her two daughters, we all lived in a two bedroom apartment.
You know what I mean?
So it was like, it was just like a, it was, it was a terrible living situation.
And then the beatings, man, I swear to God,
he used to beat me up just to prove that he could beat me, you know,
and show his girl that he was tough.
And he, you know, like nobody could fuck with him type of deal.
And it was just like, man.
So it got real dark, man.
It started like stomping me, breaking my, like broke my teeth.
Um, I had two, two crowns, you know, cause of him, cause of breaking my teeth.
And I would, I would curl up.
Like he would punch me like a grown man, but I would curl up.
He would throw uppercuts.
Like that's how intent this guy was on getting me.
And, um, the last fight we had, it was over a fucking game called Uncharted 3.
And it was, we were playing co-op, but because I would get more kills than him,
this is the kind of shit he would rage at.
He always, so, and mind you, throughout all these years, right, he's on SSD.
The reason being he had a car accident.
He was an oil truck driver.
Uh, I, I forget the story of who blew the light,
but when he was going through the light, he got T-boned or he T-boned somebody,
blew out his back, had to get surgery.
Apparently it failed.
Whenever he wanted to jump up and whoop your ass though,
dude wasn't crippled no more.
So it's crazy, you know, and he would go box 15 rounds.
But throughout 2004, all the way until I was 15 years old,
and, and then some, this man was on narcotics all the time.
He was on Vicodin, Percocet, Oxy, and, uh, he would, he definitely was addicted.
There was never a time that I didn't see it.
The dude used to have like 60 fucking bottles of it.
And, um, he would, he would take medicine and then he would drink two yinglings.
And I think when I look back, I'm like, man, like that shit will make a
motherfucker angry.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, it just got worse as I got older.
But I remember the last fight that we had, it was, you know, I used to, I
remember I used to look at him and be crying and say,
you know, like, how come you don't love me?
Like, I got this empty hole in my chest because I didn't understand emotion.
So I'd like try to plead with him like, yo, like something's wrong with me.
I got something, I got a hole, I got, I got a hole in my heart, like, or my
chest.
I don't know how to, I don't even know how to explain it.
And, uh, you know, the things he would say in rebuttal would be like, kill,
fucking kill yourself.
Your feelings don't matter.
Shut the fuck up.
And when I say jump, you say how high, like it was, there was no remorse for
anything he did.
And I think that's why I despise him.
Um, you know, the dude hurt me, uh, he hurt me for a lot of years that I had to
repair.
Um, and even then I still carry over some bad, bad attitude problems.
And, uh, you know, the dude fucking, it got to the point where it was like,
either I'm gonna kill myself or I'm gonna kill him.
And finally he beat me half to death the one day, I mean, beat me half to death.
And I, I packed a bag of clothes and he came out, he pulled a fucking knife on
me, said he was gonna kill me with it.
I shoved him, ran out the fucking door, never went back.
Jesus Christ.
Never went back.
But.
How old were you then?
16.
I was just turning, I was, I, I, I was either 16 and the week after 17, I don't
remember.
Um, but I was, I was within two weeks of turning 17 when I left.
Um, or I just turned 17 and then left.
So, uh, it was in the month of September.
God damn.
And yeah, so I left, slept in the park for a couple nights and, uh, then I
wound up standing up for, uh, a
kid, uh, a black kid that was getting called Rachel slurs.
And that was my first friend I had made.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, he wound up having, uh, he definitely was on the
spectrum.
Like he, he wasn't the smartest kid.
Um, unfortunately, like he, he had some things that, uh, people would pick on
him for, um, like
being overweight and, and say, he would say some weird stuff and whatnot.
But, uh, yeah, he was the first friend that I developed and, um, his brother
was in juvie for arson, trying to lay somebody's house on fire.
And he was adopted by a white man.
So, but the house that they lived in, bro, it was like the most disgusting
living environment you could fucking think of.
Cat piss infested, hoarder of comics that were all destroyed from cat piss.
Um, like every part of the house would have been sticky.
Like your shoes would stick to the fucking floor.
Um, and there were shit everywhere.
The smell was like a pneumonia.
Um, maggots in the sink because he refused for about four years to fix the
garbage disposal.
That's how long it sat there, broken live wire on the overhead of the oven.
So I lived in there.
Um, and I wind up with, I used to run papers to the courthouse and make like 75
bucks a week.
So every time I would make a little bit of money and his dad would give me some
money sometimes to like try and help, uh, like straighten up the house.
And I would buy bleach and fucking bleach shit and try to clean.
And bro, it was disgusting.
Like you could wash your clothes six fucking times and it would still smell
like cat piss.
And it was very embarrassing, very humbling.
Way to live.
And I lived off like instant food, like microwave food for the next two years,
all my wrestling high school years.
And the next two years that I was there, everything was either donated food
from my wrestling coach, um, Will Harmon, who fucking man, that, that was my
saving grace.
When I went to that school, you know, I don't want to miss that part.
Like that's important to me.
That man is the whole reason I'm in the UFC now.
Wow.
So, um, God damn, dude, those were the living conditions, man.
Like, I mean, I mean, fucking, and he, my wrestling coach would come to the
house and then I had truancy officers coming after me.
Cause I've missed so much school.
Um, uh, it was either Dyfus or some child services at a certain point that was
like, who's taking care of you?
Who's your caregiver?
And, you know, I had a nasty response for him and nothing kind of came of it,
but it was like, do I look like I'm fucking unhealthy?
I remember slamming the door in the woman's face.
Cause I thought they were going to try and take me from the house, but, uh, but
yeah, man, it was shitty times and, uh, you know, life beats you up in ways
that you're not prepared for.
And it doesn't change no matter how much money you make, no matter you're here,
you're here.
There's always going to be a problem.
It's just how you roll with it.
So, well, for sure.
But having been through the problems that you've been through, I guarantee you,
you know, how to navigate problems better than most people.
I voice it a lot.
You know, people always think I'm bitching, but I just, I'm a bro and I am
sometimes I bitch, you know, cause that's my way of coping.
I'll put it out there.
So it's not stuck inside and that's something that's worked for me.
You know, I say a lot of things that I feel and, uh, as long as I get it out, I'm
happy.
You know what I mean?
Uh, or any, at least I'm settled.
I don't have that like anger, like waiting to explode.
You know, that's the worst.
Did you ever think of where you would be if it wasn't for martial arts in that
same situation?
I would kill myself.
I would kill myself.
100%.
I, I struggled even when I had it, you know, and, and that's the, it's one of
the only things that gets people out.
Yeah.
I just, I just didn't see a life for me, man.
I was so stupid.
And when I say stupid, like the whole time that my dad to stay at home, dad,
and I want
to give credit to my mother too, you know, my mother, I never really felt like
loved me
that much and, uh, you know, is what it is.
But, uh, my mom worked her ass off and that's why I get my work ethic.
That woman held two jobs.
She did what she could to provide.
She wasn't, you know, she wasn't a bum.
She was, she tried and she did the best she could with a dude like that.
You know what I mean?
She was, she never had another man, still hasn't had another man to this day.
She was married to him for 20 years.
They had five blood kids.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, I owe my mom respect for that because she's a hardworking
woman.
And, uh, didn't matter if she, she used to work at ShopRite, Home Depot.
Those were her two jobs.
And then CNA and, you know, she, she did what she could, you know?
So, uh, I respect her for that and, um, yeah, I mean, fuck, man.
That dude was not teaching us homeschool is my point for years.
You were afraid to ask him to fucking give you a spelling bee.
Because he was sitting at the fucking computer playing games.
So if you did it, what the fuck do you want?
What the fuck are you bothering me?
Like, it was always a huge, like, explosion.
So you're a kid and, you know, from getting beat by this person, it's like, I
don't want to make him mad.
He might fucking slap me.
He might hit me.
He might do something.
So all of us were scared.
We didn't fucking learn anything.
I tested again in public school.
Motherfucker, they held me back.
I was dumb as shit.
Like, it is what it is.
So, uh, yeah, I mean, so my point is making light of something, you know, dark,
you know, but then coming back to the dark side, man.
If, if I didn't have MMA, I don't, I don't think I would be successful.
Um, I don't think I would have been strong enough.
I don't think I would have had confidence and, uh, I think life would have
broke me, man.
I think I would have, I would have taken, I would have taken, you know, the
easy way out.

Joe Pyfer Gets Candid About Overcoming an Abusive Household

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- My life got real tough once I got to,
like once I left home.
So my parents divorced at 15,
like I testified I never wanted to see my mom again,
and then I left with my dad, yeah.
So, you know, the other branch of that story
is you got the abuse from at least my earliest memory
of like four and a half, five years old,
and then until 15 years old, then we leave.
I go to PA with my dad because my mom basically hated my guts.
I was a, it was like, it was such a divided family.
It was the girls and my mom that we lived like the farm life.
Like I grew up a farm boy and against like my dad
and the fighter, right?
Like, like I was a puppet and, you know,
I just mimicked everything that he said, but you know,
I chose my dad because I didn't want to lose wrestling
or jujitsu or boxing and everything.
But then when I got up- - The things that were giving you meaning.
- But then when I got up to PA,
he had already had a girl he was laid up in
that it was like, that's all that mattered to him.
And then she worked, he doesn't work.
You know what I mean?
So he found somebody to prey on, to manipulate, to do his thing.
And then it was like, I don't need my kid no more
after I went to court.
And like, you know, I didn't understand the consequences
of testifying, testifying in court against your mom
and being dragged to court out of school and that humiliation.
And you know, I didn't talk to my, my mom and my sisters
for years and we, we don't talk currently.
We haven't talked since before I got in the UFC.
And we haven't talked since before I broke my arm.
- Wow.
- Because I knocked my sister's boyfriend out
for being a meth head.
- Oh Jesus.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it is what it is.
But, but yeah, man.
I mean, once I moved up to PA, I got, that was the worst.
Like that short span from 15 to like 18 was like, man,
like I was ready to, I was out.
- So where were you staying during that time?
- So I stayed in media PA.
I lived in, I lived in, it's Pennsylvania,
but it's like 25 minutes outside of Philadelphia.
So it's like the suburb city.
Honestly, it's like a bougie, it's not bougie,
but it's like a townie, nice town.
And you know, everything was new to me.
I came from a school of 330 kids.
I got into high school.
I was in a school of like 1600 kids.
It cost four grades,
but they were all like preppy fuckers.
Like the kids down in South Jersey where I grew up,
they were, they were all fighting each other,
like beating each other up, jumping each other after school.
Up here, everybody would talk shit and nobody would fight.
So it was like a weird, it was a weird thing for me to adjust.
I didn't have friends.
I didn't have a phone like until I started getting a job.
And yeah, man, it was weird.
It was really weird.
I lived in a two bedroom apartment and my dad,
his girl at the time, like he's married to now.
And her two daughters, we all lived in a two bedroom apartment.
You know what I mean?
So it was like, it was just like a, it was, it was a terrible living situation.
And then the beatings, man, I swear to God,
he used to beat me up just to prove that he could beat me, you know,
and show his girl that he was tough.
And he, you know, like nobody could fuck with him type of deal.
And it was just like, man.
So it got real dark, man.
It started like stomping me, breaking my, like broke my teeth.
Um, I had two, two crowns, you know, cause of him, cause of breaking my teeth.
And I would, I would curl up.
Like he would punch me like a grown man, but I would curl up.
He would throw uppercuts.
Like that's how intent this guy was on getting me.
And, um, the last fight we had, it was over a fucking game called Uncharted 3.
And it was, we were playing co-op, but because I would get more kills than him,
this is the kind of shit he would rage at.
He always, so, and mind you, throughout all these years, right, he's on SSD.
The reason being he had a car accident.
He was an oil truck driver.
Uh, I, I forget the story of who blew the light,
but when he was going through the light, he got T-boned or he T-boned somebody,
blew out his back, had to get surgery.
Apparently it failed.
Whenever he wanted to jump up and whoop your ass though,
dude wasn't crippled no more.
So it's crazy, you know, and he would go box 15 rounds.
But throughout 2004, all the way until I was 15 years old,
and, and then some, this man was on narcotics all the time.
He was on Vicodin, Percocet, Oxy, and, uh, he would, he definitely was addicted.
There was never a time that I didn't see it.
The dude used to have like 60 fucking bottles of it.
And, um, he would, he would take medicine and then he would drink two yinglings.
And I think when I look back, I'm like, man, like that shit will make a
motherfucker angry.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, it just got worse as I got older.
But I remember the last fight that we had, it was, you know, I used to, I
remember I used to look at him and be crying and say,
you know, like, how come you don't love me?
Like, I got this empty hole in my chest because I didn't understand emotion.
So I'd like try to plead with him like, yo, like something's wrong with me.
I got something, I got a hole, I got, I got a hole in my heart, like, or my
chest.
I don't know how to, I don't even know how to explain it.
And, uh, you know, the things he would say in rebuttal would be like, kill,
fucking kill yourself.
Your feelings don't matter.
Shut the fuck up.
And when I say jump, you say how high, like it was, there was no remorse for
anything he did.
And I think that's why I despise him.
Um, you know, the dude hurt me, uh, he hurt me for a lot of years that I had to
repair.
Um, and even then I still carry over some bad, bad attitude problems.
And, uh, you know, the dude fucking, it got to the point where it was like,
either I'm gonna kill myself or I'm gonna kill him.
And finally he beat me half to death the one day, I mean, beat me half to death.
And I, I packed a bag of clothes and he came out, he pulled a fucking knife on
me, said he was gonna kill me with it.
I shoved him, ran out the fucking door, never went back.
Jesus Christ.
Never went back.
But.
How old were you then?
16.
I was just turning, I was, I, I, I was either 16 and the week after 17, I don't
remember.
Um, but I was, I was within two weeks of turning 17 when I left.
Um, or I just turned 17 and then left.
So, uh, it was in the month of September.
God damn.
And yeah, so I left, slept in the park for a couple nights and, uh, then I
wound up standing up for, uh, a
kid, uh, a black kid that was getting called Rachel slurs.
And that was my first friend I had made.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, he wound up having, uh, he definitely was on the
spectrum.
Like he, he wasn't the smartest kid.
Um, unfortunately, like he, he had some things that, uh, people would pick on
him for, um, like
being overweight and, and say, he would say some weird stuff and whatnot.
But, uh, yeah, he was the first friend that I developed and, um, his brother
was in juvie for arson, trying to lay somebody's house on fire.
And he was adopted by a white man.
So, but the house that they lived in, bro, it was like the most disgusting
living environment you could fucking think of.
Cat piss infested, hoarder of comics that were all destroyed from cat piss.
Um, like every part of the house would have been sticky.
Like your shoes would stick to the fucking floor.
Um, and there were shit everywhere.
The smell was like a pneumonia.
Um, maggots in the sink because he refused for about four years to fix the
garbage disposal.
That's how long it sat there, broken live wire on the overhead of the oven.
So I lived in there.
Um, and I wind up with, I used to run papers to the courthouse and make like 75
bucks a week.
So every time I would make a little bit of money and his dad would give me some
money sometimes to like try and help, uh, like straighten up the house.
And I would buy bleach and fucking bleach shit and try to clean.
And bro, it was disgusting.
Like you could wash your clothes six fucking times and it would still smell
like cat piss.
And it was very embarrassing, very humbling.
Way to live.
And I lived off like instant food, like microwave food for the next two years,
all my wrestling high school years.
And the next two years that I was there, everything was either donated food
from my wrestling coach, um, Will Harmon, who fucking man, that, that was my
saving grace.
When I went to that school, you know, I don't want to miss that part.
Like that's important to me.
That man is the whole reason I'm in the UFC now.
Wow.
So, um, God damn, dude, those were the living conditions, man.
Like, I mean, I mean, fucking, and he, my wrestling coach would come to the
house and then I had truancy officers coming after me.
Cause I've missed so much school.
Um, uh, it was either Dyfus or some child services at a certain point that was
like, who's taking care of you?
Who's your caregiver?
And, you know, I had a nasty response for him and nothing kind of came of it,
but it was like, do I look like I'm fucking unhealthy?
I remember slamming the door in the woman's face.
Cause I thought they were going to try and take me from the house, but, uh, but
yeah, man, it was shitty times and, uh, you know, life beats you up in ways
that you're not prepared for.
And it doesn't change no matter how much money you make, no matter you're here,
you're here.
There's always going to be a problem.
It's just how you roll with it.
So, well, for sure.
But having been through the problems that you've been through, I guarantee you,
you know, how to navigate problems better than most people.
I voice it a lot.
You know, people always think I'm bitching, but I just, I'm a bro and I am
sometimes I bitch, you know, cause that's my way of coping.
I'll put it out there.
So it's not stuck inside and that's something that's worked for me.
You know, I say a lot of things that I feel and, uh, as long as I get it out, I'm
happy.
You know what I mean?
Uh, or any, at least I'm settled.
I don't have that like anger, like waiting to explode.
You know, that's the worst.
Did you ever think of where you would be if it wasn't for martial arts in that
same situation?
I would kill myself.
I would kill myself.
100%.
I, I struggled even when I had it, you know, and, and that's the, it's one of
the only things that gets people out.
Yeah.
I just, I just didn't see a life for me, man.
I was so stupid.
And when I say stupid, like the whole time that my dad to stay at home, dad,
and I want
to give credit to my mother too, you know, my mother, I never really felt like
loved me
that much and, uh, you know, is what it is.
But, uh, my mom worked her ass off and that's why I get my work ethic.
That woman held two jobs.
She did what she could to provide.
She wasn't, you know, she wasn't a bum.
She was, she tried and she did the best she could with a dude like that.
You know what I mean?
She was, she never had another man, still hasn't had another man to this day.
She was married to him for 20 years.
They had five blood kids.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, I owe my mom respect for that because she's a hardworking
woman.
And, uh, didn't matter if she, she used to work at ShopRite, Home Depot.
Those were her two jobs.
And then CNA and, you know, she, she did what she could, you know?
So, uh, I respect her for that and, um, yeah, I mean, fuck, man.
That dude was not teaching us homeschool is my point for years.
You were afraid to ask him to fucking give you a spelling bee.
Because he was sitting at the fucking computer playing games.
So if you did it, what the fuck do you want?
What the fuck are you bothering me?
Like, it was always a huge, like, explosion.
So you're a kid and, you know, from getting beat by this person, it's like, I
don't want to make him mad.
He might fucking slap me.
He might hit me.
He might do something.
So all of us were scared.
We didn't fucking learn anything.
I tested again in public school.
Motherfucker, they held me back.
I was dumb as