My Fight / Your Fight

by Ronda Rousey

  This is the part where I wish I could say that I reached deep down and screamed. That kind of primal soul-cleansing, “Is that all you got?” kinda scream. Where the sun started to break over the horizon, and I saw the beauty and meaning of nature. Where maybe a bird flew overhead as a sign. Then I could say that I knew in that moment that everything would be all right. That did not happen.

  Instead, I cried, heaving body-racking sobs. The salt of the tears and the iron taste of blood pooled in the back of my throat. In the rearview mirror, I could see the mess of clotting blood and slimy snot, streaked by tears. I didn’t even care enough to wipe it away.

  “I’m so fucking tired,” I said aloud, feeling blood drip down my face. Cars kept passing me by and I let them.

  Hands trembling, I called my mom again.

  “Hello . . .” Hearing her voice, I choked up even more, and—on the verge of hyperventilating and much to her confusion—the words burst out, “I fucking hate this part of the book.”

  I was being tested, and while I knew in my heart that I was going to pass, in that moment, it felt like I was failing.

  CHAMPIONS ALWAYS DO MORE

  Every time I step into the cage, I am absolutely confident I will win. Not only am I a superior fighter. Not only do I want it more. But I have worked harder than she ever will. That is what truly sets me apart.

  Growing up, Mom hammered into me how much harder champions worked than anyone else. When I complained about going to practice or when I hit the snooze on the alarm instead of getting up to go running, my mom would say casually, “I bet [whoever my archrival at the time happened to be] is training right now.”

  She had me stay after practice and work on drills. Whenever I pointed out that no one else’s mother made them stay, she simply informed me, “Champions always do more.”

  Exasperated, I whined, “Mom, I’ve been here for an extra fifteen minutes. Everybody’s already left. I’ve already done more.”

  She simply told me, “Champions do more than people who think that they’ve done more.”

  Tuesdays were the hardest day of the week.

  I worked the graveyard shift at 24 Hour Fitness on Saturdays and Sundays, so on Monday mornings, depending on how tired I was, I either headed to my apartment for a few hours of sleep or drove directly to strength and conditioning training with Leo. Leo was in Sherman Oaks, which is completely across L.A. from both 24 Hour Fitness and my house. I worked out with Leo, lifting weights and doing circuits, then showered at the gym (it had free conditioner!). Afterward, he let me sleep on the couch at his house for a few hours before we drove to wrestling practice. I relished that quiet time alone where I didn’t have to be going from one place to another and could rest. We went together to wrestle at SK Golden Boys, which was a makeshift wrestling gym in a garage where Martin Berberyan ran practice. The level of competition made up for the thrown-together practice facility. I would go up against all the guys in wrestling, and when I didn’t one-up them, I at least held my own. The garage was built to hold cars, not wrestling practice, so it was poorly ventilated and stiflingly hot. It was humid and smelled like sweat. I showered there, in the added-on bathroom, but the minute I stepped out of the shower, the heat was so overwhelming that I immediately started sweating again. We got back to Leo’s after eight p.m. and it took me another hour to drive to DPCG’s house, where I spent almost every night. He wasn’t working, so he watched Mochi for me. After back-to-back overnight shifts and a double workout, I collapsed into bed.

  On Tuesdays, DPCG and I woke up at seven-thirty a.m., then drove to the Coffee Bean in the Santa Monica business center. I loved waiting in line with his arms around me.

  Then Mochi and I were off to Glendale to train. I took the 405 North to the 134, glad to be going against traffic. My car’s air-conditioning was still broken and I only had one working window. I had a pair of laundry baskets in the backseat of my car, one containing clean clothes, the other dirty. Mochi liked pulling the dirty ones out and rolling around on them. The smell of dirty laundry, sweat, and dog slobber was overwhelming. I was pretty sure a new super pathogen was being bred in my backseat, and when Mochi started developing a rash, I considered that proof.

  I got to GFC around nine in the morning, before Sevak, and let myself in. Mochi was supposed to stay on the slab of concrete by the door, but she refused to listen and climbed up on the corner of the ring. I warmed up until Edmond came. When he walked in and saw the dog in the ring, he could not hide his disgust, but it wasn’t until months later that he politely asked me to stop bringing the dog to the gym.

  “What should I do today?” I asked Edmond.

  Then I did whatever exercise Edmond told me to do.

  Hitting the bags, the little speed bag, the hulking heavy bag, the double end bag. Shadow boxing. Jump roping. Bouncing on the tire. Working with the medicine ball. Doing drills. Going under the little ropes, working on agility. There were hundreds of different things there I would do.

  I did whatever Edmond assigned me to do until he realized that he had forgot I was still there doing it, far longer than he had intended me to do it. I never lessened the level of intensity that I put out. Then Edmond told me to do something else.

  I spent three hours a day at GFC, and occasionally, if he was in a generous mood, Edmond held mitts for me, not even for twenty minutes. But on these days, I made the most of every second.

  Whenever he called my name, I jumped up, ducked under the ropes, and stepped into the ring, where he had me throw a left jab. A jab is a quick, sharp blow, not the kind of power punch where you can throw a knockout with one hit. For months, every session was jab, jab, jab. Sometimes it was a double jab. That was all Edmond let me do in the ring for a very long time.

  We worked on how to throw jabs and how to match them. Edmond hit me with thousands of punches and showed me how to block. If I looked tired, he hit me harder. Once he hit me so hard in the body that it knocked the wind out of me. I moved to take a knee, to catch my breath; he grabbed me with one hand and pulled me up.

  “You’re not taking a knee,” he said. “If you take a knee, I’m going to hit you more. You don’t have the choice to get hit or not get hit. You have one choice. You can get up and get hit or I can hit you down there.” That was the last knee I ever took.

  He kept throwing punches. I brought my hands down, as if to say, Hit me in the face. I can take a punch.

  Edmond looked me in the eye and threw a jab right to the body. I fought not to double over.

  “I’m not fucking stupid,” Edmond said. “You give your head to me and expect me to hit your head. No, I’m going to hit your body.”

  I learned to never expect my opponents to just do what I wanted. I would have to make them do what I wanted.

  I had to rush out of GFC to make it to the animal rehabilitation clinic where I was a vet assistant. I loaded into the car covered in three hours’ worth of sweat to drive back across L.A. when the sun was at its highest point in my hotbox of a car. With Mochi settled in the back, I made the forty-five-minute drive home blasting indie dance music and singing and grooving in my car.

  I would stop at my apartment and run in to shower. The water pressure was so pathetic that only a dribble came out. DPCG lived right down the street from the clinic, a fifteen-minute commute from my place, and I swung by his house to drop off Mochi.

  “Be a good girl,” I said, leaving my dog behind to go care for other people’s. I gave DPCG a big kiss, and he slapped me on the ass as I ran out the door to work.

  I spent the next several hours hoisting dogs into and out of pools where they walked on an underwater treadmill, holding them down for physical therapy and acupuncture. I watched injured animals recover and aging animals deteriorate; I tried to keep a detached distance but always failed. In between appointments, I chatted with the clients about how I was training to be in MMA, until my bosses got tired of hearing people asking me how my fighting was going and banned me from talking about anything bu
t dogs while I was on the clock.

  I got a lunch break in the late afternoon and drove over to DPCG’s house, where he would already have all my training food cooked—vegetables and chicken grilled with my favorite sauce from Versailles, a local Cuban restaurant—and waiting for me. I inhaled the food, leaving us a few minutes to enjoy each other’s company before I raced back to work. I would finish my shift, but my day wasn’t yet finished.

  After thirty minutes stuck in the tail end of rush-hour traffic, I taught adults judo on L.A.’s Westside. I went through the motions, but felt an odd detachment from the sport. I stuck around to do the Brazilian Jiujitsu class afterward. Back at DPCG’s house, he made this little tuna concoction—tuna, mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, and Balsamic vinegar—that I loved and that we ate with toasted bread or tortilla chips.

  Before climbing into bed, I peeled off another sweaty layer of clothes to shower. My body was noticeably slimming down, my muscles firming up. I was covered in bruises and mat burns and dog scratches. Sore was just a state of being. It wasn’t as if I was not sore and then I became sore. I was sore just like I am blonde.

  I stepped into the shower, letting the water pour down on me. Then I adopted my fighting stance and shadowboxed in the shower, throwing punches at water droplets.

  I toweled off and collapsed into bed.

  The days were all soreness, sweat, the stench of my car, and constant wet hair. I didn’t mind it. I was in the middle of the hustle, and I understood that in order to be successful this was what I needed to do. I needed to practice more than anyone on the planet. I needed to be smarter and stronger and go longer. I needed to be at the gym when other people were merely thinking about going to the gym. I needed to go beyond what anyone else thought was reasonable and then go beyond that. Every day I did that, I moved one day closer to achieving my goal.

  At night, I slept soundly, absolutely certain that I could not have done any more.

  PLAN OUT THE FIRST EXCHANGE

  People ask me all the time what my game plan is for an opponent. I never have a strict game plan. I plan the first exchange, then I improvise based upon everything that follows. Then I sketch out different possible scenarios. If she charges, I’m going to throw her forward. If she runs, I’ll throw her backward.

  You have to stay flexible. You have to be ready for anything. But I always plan the first exchange. By making the first move, I control the first action, which causes all the reactions.

  I went from having no one willing to coach me to having no one willing to fight me.

  In the beginning of my MMA career, the hardest part was getting fights. Darin would call and tell me he had a fight lined up. Then a few days later he’d call again to tell me that the girl’s coach said she wasn’t ready, or that I wasn’t the right opponent.

  The first few times I had been disappointed. By the fifth time it happened, I was just pissed. These girls supposedly wanted to be fighters, but they were unwilling to take a fight that they weren’t absolutely positive they could win. It felt like no one was ever going to take a fight against me.

  I took my frustration out on the punching bag and pounded it furiously, over and over and over.

  I wanted to fight.

  I wanted to win.

  I wanted to beat someone up.

  I told myself it was only a matter of time, and that when that time came, I was going to be ready. These girls would have to face me eventually, and I would make them regret giving me time to improve.

  Darin called again. He had a potential fight lined up.

  “There’s just one thing,” he said. “She will only take the fight at one-fifty.”

  I was now walking around at about 145 pounds. “Tell her we’ll take it,” I said.

  There were two weeks until the fight. My excitement grew each day as the fight edged closer, but I was afraid to get my hopes up after being let down so many times.

  The day before the fight, Edmond held mitts for me at GFC. He wasn’t enthusiastic about training me, but he had kept his word about helping me prepare.

  “Getting better,” Edmond said.

  I nodded.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Born that way,” I said, punching the mitts.

  He looked at me slightly confused, lost in translation. His English had improved dramatically since he started working with me, but like my striking, it still had a long way to go.

  “Don’t go in striking,” Edmond said. “Do judo. Use judo to beat this girl.”

  I felt a surge of adrenaline.

  “You think I’ll win?” I asked. I knew I was going to win, but a sense of pride came from knowing that Edmond believed in me.

  “Fighting girls? Not that hard,” Edmond said with a shrug.

  Edmond was noncommittal about cornering me. Darin said he would give him a call.

  Darin and I left L.A. late morning on August 6, 2010, making the hourlong drive up to Oxnard. Edmond had agreed to come, but was going to drive up on his own later.

  As we drove, Darin attempted to make small talk, but I preferred quiet before I fight. I was mentally preparing myself to fight the entire way up.

  We pulled into the parking lot of the gym where the fight was being held. It was a completely random gym in Oxnard. Because it was an amateur fight, the weigh-in was the same day as the fight. We checked in and stood around waiting. My opponent had yet to arrive.

  Just be ready, I told myself.

  Then Hayden Munoz walked into the gym. There is very little ceremony to an amateur weigh-in, so they just had us hop up on the scale. She went first.

  “One hundred and fifty-four pounds,” the official running the weigh-in declared.

  Everyone looked at me. Now, it was up to me. I could fight her or she would have to forfeit. I expected her to look disappointed, but I could see relief in her eyes. It would be short-lived.

  “I’ll fight anyway,” I said.

  I had never been more ready for something in my entire life. I changed in the gym’s locker room and walked over to the warm-up area, which was just a sectioned-off part of the floor with some mats thrown down. Other fighters were starting to warm up, stretching, doing some light sparring. I lay down and closed my eyes. People started trickling in, most of them friends or family of the fighters. Gokor came over to where I was resting; he had agreed to be one of my cornermen. Edmond was nowhere in sight.

  A few guys from Hayastan were milling around. I was flattered. My mom, Jennifer, and my old coach Blinky arrived. My mom made sure I saw she was there, but kept her distance, knowing that’s what I like the day of a fight. Edmond still wasn’t there. I accepted the fact that he might not come. I didn’t need him there. The girl could have had forty pounds on me, and I was still going to beat her. Then about an hour before the fight, Edmond walked into the gym.

  I felt a surge of happiness. Edmond cared enough about me as a fighter to come and corner me. He was reluctant to hold mitts for me and less than enthusiastic about training me, but he saw something in me that made him at least willing to take time out of his day to be there for me.

  “You warmed up?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t need to be warm. I could be ready to go at a second’s notice.

  He took me over to the corner of the warm-up area, where he wrapped my hands, then had me throw jabs.

  Energy was pulsing through my body. I was excited and calm.

  “Relax,” Edmond said.

  I wanted to do more.

  “Look, this girl is a kickboxer,” Edmond said. “She’s going to try to kick you right away. Step in, catch her leg, and take her down. Use your judo, nothing else. Just your judo.”

  I nodded.

  “Munoz, Rousey, you’re next,” the fight organizers called out.

  I walked into the cage. It was as if a switch was flipped, as if the entire world did not exist outside of the chain-link walls. I locked in on my opponent.

  I stomped, then jumped, then smacked my shou
lders. The referee looked at Hayden.

  “Ready?” he asked. She nodded. He looked my way.

  “Ready?” he asked again. I gave a nod.

  Fight.

  We approached each other in the center of the cage. She kicked. I grabbed her leg and took her to the ground. I threw myself on top of her and reached in for her arm. She fought to get away, but she never stood a chance. I grabbed her arm and cranked. She tapped. The entire fight lasted twenty-three seconds.

  The referee called stop, and suddenly the whole world came back into view. Only this time, it was a better world. The crowd was cheering, screaming and whistling, and they were cheering for me. I raised my fist in the air, making a victory lap around the cage.

  I felt a level of joy that I had never experienced before. It wasn’t merely the victory; the joy came from a place much deeper, from an understanding that this was only the beginning.

  On the way home I blasted Matt and Kim’s “Don’t Slow Down.”

  My next two amateur fights were a part of a well-run amateur show called Tuff-N-Uff. They were held at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, about a mile off the Strip. My fights were so far off the radar that I did not even make it onto the event’s promotional flier. I looked at it and thought, One day my name will be on there. Neither fight lasted a minute.

  Five months after my amateur debut, having gone 3–0, I announced my decision to turn pro. With my amateur career behind me, I was one step closer to achieving my goal of being the world champion. The next leg of the journey was about to begin.

  I am often asked if I could have ever envisioned achieving all that I have accomplished since I stepped into the cage that night. People are often surprised to learn that the answer is unequivocally yes. Everything that has happened since that moment is exactly what I had in mind when I executed that first exchange.

  NOTHING WILL EVER BE PERFECT

  You can spend your entire life waiting for perfect. The perfect job. The perfect partner. The perfect opponent. Or you can acknowledge that there is always a better time or a better place or a better opportunity and refuse to let that fact hold you back from doing everything to make the present moment the perfect moment.