For Gillian Robertson Social Situations Are Harder Than Fighting

Everything is weird about this for me. It's just like, I don't, I'm just like, I guess a socially awkward kind of, don't really put myself out there. Well, I do with fighting, but it's like, I've never really put myself out there in life. So it's like to be in these kinds of positions, it's just, it's all a lot for me. Wow. Well, it's amazing that the way you handle fighting, you can handle this the same way you handle fighting. You just get comfortable with it. I think that, I don't know, for me, social situations are a lot harder than like fighting situations. Wow. That's crazy. Oh yeah. Has it always been like that? 100%. Since you were a child? Yeah. I feel like I've always been like the socially awkward kid in the back of the class, like the nerd. Well, I still am at the gym, but I volunteered with animals my whole life. I volunteered at the Humane Society, a horse rescue, wildlife rehab, but just animals were my thing. And then it was just kind of a left field. I started kickboxing when I was 16. Just for fun? Yeah, I really don't know where it came, like what the idea was, but- Where'd you start? What gym? At Dean's gym. Oh, okay. Wow. You got lucky. So exactly. I think pro fighters worked for my dad. So I wanted to start kickboxing and then my dad found out that this guy was a pro fighter for Dean. So he ended up finding his gym and that was the first gym I started at. Wow. Well, what a great place to start. And so then you start kickboxing and how long before you decide, well, what about this MMA stuff? How long was that? I think it was probably like four or five months before I started taking the MMA class there, but I wasn't like thinking about fighting. There was a kid who was on the wrestling team at my high school who started training at Dean's gym and he was like, oh, why don't you take the MMA class? And I thought, okay, I'll have a partner. Why don't I try it? And I just kept on doing it. And then I was training like every day for like three hours a night, you know? And they're like, all right, well, why don't we just get you a fight at this point? Wow. What was it about fighting in martial arts that you became so obsessed with? I really think it was a one. I don't know what it was at first because I didn't start jujitsu, especially in the gi until like a year after I started training. But when I started gi jujitsu, I fell in love with that 100 percent where it's just the technique of it and the little tiny details of jujitsu that matter so much. Like if you put your thumb on this side of the hand or on this side of the hand, it makes a huge difference. Like the little tiny techniques that can make the difference where now a 115-pound girl at the time could do whatever she wanted to a 200-pound guy. You know, it was manhandling these guys around the room. And I'm like, just because of these techniques that I learned. And I thought that was awesome. Yeah, that is an amazing thing. It's jujitsu is the one martial art that delivers as promised, where the smaller trained person can defeat the larger untrained person. There's a lot of other martial arts. I mean, you have a better chance, but when they're really big, you know, and some guy is swinging it. If you notice how to punch a little bit and you get clubbed with one of those giant hams, you get fucked up. But if you get into a struggle, like some sort of a scramble, and you knock into some chairs and all of a sudden you get ahold of this person, now he's fucked. That's what's crazy. It's like that a small person can physically control and submit a much stronger person regularly. It happens all the time. It happens with black belts. Even in striking, it's like a person cannot know anything, but if they're big enough, they throw their hand the right way. They can knock you out. Yeah. If you get hit with Francis Ngannou's pinky, you're in trouble. Exactly. You know, there's certain people that are so powerful. The idea that you're going to stand and trade with them is crazy. They're going to hit you once and you're dead. It just doesn't work that well. Jiu-jitsu is just not the variant of space. So there's not that element of guessing where it's like, I can control and I can feel what you're going to do by touching you. It makes it a lot easier. You're not guessing what that space is striking. You're also not guessing the variables. How fast is this person? How fast am I accustomed to people punching me? Is this person much faster? Do I have to anticipate that? Because if you ever see like street fight videos, the most horrific ones are some poor asshole who wants to start a fight with someone who's a trained fighter and the trained fighter fucks them up. But you could see like they have no idea how fast things can happen. I'm sure you've seen a Joe Schilling one. Yeah. Joe Schilling one is ridiculous. But there's no way that guy could have known that that can happen that quickly. There's no way. And people don't expect like for someone like me, a lot of times I get, I would never guess that you're a fighter. For someone like Joe Schilling is still even like, oh yeah, you wouldn't like just see him. Just like an axe murderer. But you just see him walking around. Like most people you don't expect that they're... Joe Schilling you don't expect it? I don't know. He looks like a psycho to me. Yeah. But say like Ryan Hall. Ryan Hall is a great example. You don't expect him to be a fighter, but it's like you never know what somebody is capable of when it comes to sports like this. Oh, for sure. And then you get to Mikey Musimache. Yeah, exactly. That's the best example. Yeah. Mikey is a stone cold killer. And he looks like a guy who comes over to fix your computer. Like he looks like the friendliest super nerd. Oh, this video is horrible. This is street fight in a parking garage. Have you seen this? No. These guys start fucking with this dude in a parking garage. The guy trying to get away. No, he fucked the other guy up before this. This is the shorter version. Okay, this is the shorter version. So this guy, he's trying. He's like, come on, you want some? And he moves forward. This guy leg kicks him. And then this is where it gets ugly. Punches them. Bam. He's out. Yeah, you don't want that. Like what? Like it's awesome to see that stuff works, right? For people like, hey, this is real. Someone tries to attack you. You have an upper hand. But also, what are you doing? Yeah. These fucking people. I've never been in a street fight in my life. Good for you. I don't intend to ever. It's just, I don't get it. Yeah, there's, I don't see a use for fighting outside the cage for me. A lot of people anger management issues. And then there's criminals too. And you know, bad folks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff in the world. But just for me, I think it's fascinating that you are more afraid of social interaction than you're afraid of cage fighting. That might be one of the greatest lines that anyone has ever said. I think that's going to get you a lot of fans. For real. For me, it's just like literally, I never really did any kind of interviews or media or anything like that until I got in the tough house. So that's going from absolutely zero to 100%. What was that like? You were like 22 at the time? Yeah, I was 22 and I was having interviews every day. Cameras on you 24-7. Literally, after every single interview, I had to go and change my shirt because I'd be dripping sweat like I just got out the sauna. Whoa. Just so nervous after every single interview. Do you think they brought you into the house knowing that you were nervous too? Like that you're a little socially awkward in that regard and maybe that would make good television? I guess I never thought of it in that way. Obviously, they brought you in because you're skillful. But they also cast that show as a reality show. It's a very cleverly done show. It's smart the way they do it. Even with what they're doing now with Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler, it's great but perfect shit talking. When Conor tells him you'll do as you're told, it's amazing. I hope that fight takes place. But it's such a show, right? So it's not just an athletic competition. It's also they want to make sure the people are fun. Oh yeah. Our season seemed pretty tame though, I feel like in general. We had a lot of ... There was me and Montana Delarosa were the two younger girls and then everybody else I feel like was older and more mature. Around at least 30s and they were like ... Nobody was trying to start drama. Nobody was trying to get in each other's faces or we didn't have any altercations. It was a pretty chill season. That's great. So no one ever encourages any bickering or anything like that? They don't ever tell you, hey, that bitch has been science and shit. Does anybody ever do that? No, nobody ever really does anything like that. But it's just the boredom gets to you if anything else. It's like ... I feel like ... No phones, right? No phones, no TV, no music, no books, no ... Nothing. No books. Nothing at all. Oh my God. Nothing? So it's like ... Can you have a notebook? You're allowed to get a notebook and then they gave us ... We asked for coloring books and they gave us sketch pads. Oh my God, I think I would go nuts. That sounds like one of those anti-tech retreats. Exactly. Where they try to weed people off their tech addictions. I was just talking to one of the boys who's actually on the Conor McGregor season over the weekend and he said the exact same thing as me. He was like, it was the best and worst experience of my life. Because it's like when you're in the gym, there's so many highs, it's so great. But then when you go back to the house, you're just sitting there for hours and you're bored and it sucks. What do you guys do to kill time? Can you play games? Do they have ... They used to have pool, right? Yeah, I think they had a pool table and a chess table and then they have the list where you can order anything. Oh, so you could order like Monopoly? Yeah, so we would order a bunch of bullshit just trying to entertain ourselves. God, did you have good conversations? Or was it weird because you're all competitors? It's weird, well, not because we're competitors because I'm weird. That's awesome. I felt like I ... Especially back then, I wasn't able to just like, I don't know, acclimate to that, going into a house with 16 different girls that I don't really know. Right. Yeah, a completely alien experience. You're feeling a little bit awkward and you're also 22. And then also, bam, now you're on TV. It's my first time really like leaving home, I would say, for a long period of time. So it was definitely a big experience, like a lot to take on. How long ago was that now? Six years? Six years. Would you say that now you're entering into your fighting prime? Do you think that's happening right now? Oh yeah, I think this is like just the beginning of my prime. I'm just getting into where I've really found the right combination for everything and I feel like I'm just getting better every fight. Are you ranked right now? Where are you at? My next fight is against the number 15 girl, Tabitha Rickey. Interesting. She's tough. That'll be fun. That'll be a good one. Like it's coming up quick, June 24th. Oh wow, that is quick.