Name: JRE MMA Show #29 with Cat Zingano
Uploaded: 2018-05-28T22:43:25.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'JRE MMA Show #29 with Cat Zingano' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-05-28. Transcript available. Joe is joined by UFC fighter Cat Zingano.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'JRE MMA Show #29 with Cat Zingano' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-05-28. Transcript available. Joe is joined by UFC fighter Cat Zingano.

JRE MMA Show #29 with Cat Zingano

Here we go. Four, three, two, one. Boom. And we're live, Kat. How are you?
I'm good. How are you?
Good to see you here.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
My pleasure. My pleasure. I've been looking forward to talking to you for a
while.
I know. I feel like it's been a long time coming. I don't even know how much
time we have. I feel like there's a hell of a lot to catch up on.
Yeah, there's a lot to talk about always. You're getting ready for Boise? That's
your next fight?
Who are you fighting? Marianne Renau, July 14th in the CenturyLink Arena.
Now, you took a good stretch off, right?
A couple of times. A couple of times. Let's see. After I fought Misha, I blew
my knee and then the world exploded.
And so I had, I think, 18 months off between that and fighting Amanda.
And then after I fought Amanda, I, so Amanda was like September 27th, something
like that.
And I fought Rhonda February 28th. And then after Rhonda, took another big
stretch off, fought Juliana the following year, July 9th.
And then this was another big stretch off. So, yeah, it's been a little bit
scattered, but doing what I can.
Yeah. And you're, you're doing some crazy therapy too, right? Some, some
interesting stuff down in San Diego.
Yeah. So there's, there's been a few things I've been working on. Like, I'm not
a huge fan of Western medicine, you know, like even, I mean, you can call it
alternative medicine.
It's like original medicine. I appreciate looking at things like that way more
than, you know, big farm. But I, you know, one thing that, you know, fighting
has gotten me and stuff with, you know, I think it's more prevalent in women,
although I'm thinking it's happening with men too, is like our endocrine
systems are not happy with these weight cuts.
And they're not happy with us, like getting hit in the head a lot. I mean, go
figure, right?
Yeah, go figure.
So, um, you know, within all of that, I've just, you know, had medical problems
and things that like I'm constantly working on and I feel really good.
I'm, I'm constantly improving. But, um, one thing I was feeling a little bit
stuck on was, uh, one, I was like some of the endocrine problem issues, but, um,
like, I don't know.
I, I had, uh, had, I went to this facility in, in San Diego is called, um, dang,
why can't I remember?
Oh, uh, mindset. And actually the UFC sent me there because I mean, we have USADA,
we have all of these things like, um, after fighting Amanda, I got my head
pounded for a good four minutes there.
Um, I had a TBI afterwards. So that was like, uh, immediately lowered my, uh,
estrogen, lowered my DHEA, my testosterone, and I'm hypothyroid.
Like I will always be hypothyroid now. Like I have to that fight.
Yeah. Yeah. And, um, you know, still toughed it out. Still was trying to do
what I could to go and fight Rhonda as soon as I did afterwards.
And, you know, part of my game plan is don't get hit. And which means like, let's
just dart at her and see what happens.
You know, so, well, that's what happens when you do that.
Yeah. For people who don't know, TBI is traumatic brain injury, just in case if
someone is listening to this, doesn't understand what we're talking about.
And then in the Rhonda fight, if people don't know about that, you just charged
after her and you got caught in an arm bar and like, what was it? Very quick.
It was like 14 seconds.
It was 14 seconds, but I did hit her with a knee. I did throw her ass, but she
practiced this little ninja move and caught my damn arm and it was, it was over,
you know, but I mean, even, even her coaches were like, I mean, that's, you did
what you're supposed to do there.
And she just got you, you know, so, um, that would be an awesome fight to be
able to revisit one day. Uh, she even said we'd do it. I mean, who knows her
career is so open right now.
I don't think she's ever going to fight again.
She doesn't need to.
Yeah.
She really doesn't need to.
I don't think she wants to, you know, I think, uh, I mean, who knows? 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 road
house. And there was all this, all this shit going on that was other than
fighting, you know? And then it was also, look, the sport has evolved so
rapidly in the women's women's MMA has gotten so high level so quickly.
And if you, 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. I do like, I mean, I'm curious, I'm saying the same thing as the fights
going. Right. And then I have, uh, some people in my ear next to me, they're
like, well, how long has it been since Raquel fought?
Cause she didn't look her, her like beefiest, right? She, she looked a little
tired. She looked a little like not her typical. And then it was like, she's a
year and a half off herself. Right. Like right into a title fight, which I have
to say, I'm a little bit envious of, because when I beat Misha, I won, uh, I
was supposed to coach an ultimate fighter, but that was ultimately going to end
up in a title shot with Rhonda.
And I blew my knee and my husband passed away and there was like a long moment
of silence in there. And then when I was able to come back, they made me re-earn
my title shot, you know? And so it was like, wait, Oh, we're doing that now. We're
just like, well, it doesn't depend on like what, what attractive contenders are
available, like what they can sell, what looks good.
I agree. Yeah. I mean, it was very young at that, at that age or at that time
too.
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? She had some sort of surgery.
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.
I vaguely remember some injury. Now that you're saying that I do remember
something like a broken leg. Jamie will find out what it is. Um, but were you,
uh, were you surprised by that fight?
Between Raquel and Amanda? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I didn't see Raquel
being the one to beat her, you know? Um, I do feel like Amanda's been working
and doing like, you know, improving. I mean, she changed her camps.
The coaches that she's working with, I tried out for a while at, at one point
too, when I was trying to find my spot and they're legit, they're very good. Um,
and American top team has a lot of high level training partners, both girls and
guys, you know what I mean? She had a good, uh, a good decision made there. So
I see how she's improved. Um, I think with the time off with Raquel, I wasn't
sure how it was going to go, but also I just, I just don't know. I just don't
see Raquel being to be, being the one that beats her.
It's so hard to tell, you know, right? I mean, no one, anybody on any given
night at the highest level of the game, someone can win. Someone can be off.
Someone can be on.
Oh yeah. There's no math to be done in this sport. There really isn't. Yeah.
The MMA math is ridiculous.
No, I mean, sometimes I hear like statistics on me or definitions on me or
labels on me. And I'm like, wait, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a known striker. Like I
never would have thought I'd be known as a striker.
I mean, I've been doing jujitsu and wrestling my whole life. So I mean, I'll
take it. Fuck yeah.
Well, it was the Misha KO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even that is, yes. But I mean,
that, that in itself was like, I love to wrestle. And what can I do once I've
closed that distance?
Well, it's those, those short angle strikes, you know, there's, there's knees
and there's elbows there that those are the most destructive things I could
possibly do to someone when, when we're that close.
And to do all that work to get that close. But granted, that's all influenced
by Muay Thai and what I got to learn from that discipline. So, you know, it, it's
all relevant, but, um, you know, it's, uh, it's always just interesting to, to
hear how you're now being categorized, you know?
Yeah, it is weird, right?
Right.
But you are, you are definitely a dangerous striker. I mean, you're dangerous.
I agree. I mean, I like it and, and I'm, I'm enjoying constantly learning and
new things like the, the basics were always hard for me to get. Cause I wanted
to do the big girl stuff, you know?
Right.
And, uh, you know, found my way, like right in the middle of all of that and,
and found a way to use how aggressive I am and how just like dominate, domineering
I can feel in there and, and all of that. So it's, it's like, I don't know the,
I want the maximum amount of damage without taking damage, which is obviously
the goal.
Right. But like, I want to put it into a dance. So it's like a little, I don't
know.
What made you decide to go to San Diego? So you're at Alliance now, right? So
you moved from Colorado to San Diego.
So a few things. So one of them, one of them was like, Colorado is a
complicated situation for me. I mean, I had gyms up there, like a lot just
personally happened up there.
Um, and I love my team elevation. Like I love, I, I'm still close with
everybody. Like I, I go to Colorado for Christmas holidays. Like it's still
home, you know, but a couple of things, one with the head injury, um, Colorado
is amazing for training, right?
It's amazing for building your, your endurance and whatever, but it is not good
for healing. Like you'll never see a doctor tell someone with Alzheimer's or a
TBI or heart problems or even like massive allergies or, um, what's the,
uh, arthritis, arthritis, like those are not, that's not a good place for
people to live with any kind of inflammatory or like major thing that needs to
be healing.
Cause your body's already working at such a high level because the altitude,
yeah, because of the altitude, I mean the thin air, the, the things like that.
It's just like, I, I spent so much time and so much money, like figuring out
what the hell was wrong with me that, you know, I ended up at the Mayo Clinic
spending weeks at a time going to all their,
like specialized different, uh, doctors and situations like that for them to
tell me, like, you know, 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.
Like we would prefer seeing you at sea level.
Um, so combined, like I kinda, I needed to almost exile myself from Colorado
cause I want to love it.
And I was starting to, it was starting to get like less colorful for me, you
know, cause 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, like everything was as good as it was going to get.
Like it, it literally was as good as it was going to get.
And it was like, this, this can't be it.
Like, I don't feel, I don't feel right.
You don't feel like you're at your maximum.
No.
And, and I was like, that means I'm going to have to take a change, you know?
And I was scared.
Like I have a little boy, like I'm taking him away from everything we know.
And we just packed a U-Haul and we left and we, we got to San Diego.
And what made you decide on San Diego?
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 o