Joe Rogan - Rose Namajunas on Becoming UFC Strawweight Champion

Yeah. I gotta tell you that your victory speech after you beat you on a was my all time favorite. Because it wasn't even just about you or about the fight. It wasn't about anything. It was just you expressing yourself. Pat, what are you doing over there? You all right? Checking out this little tassel. Okay. Yeah, no. I just think that... It was an awesome victory speech. It was really amazing. Thank you. It was... You were just spilling your heart out. And it was in your moment to shine. And in your moment to shine, you didn't make it about you. I think I fight better that way. It's always about me throughout the training camp. Everybody, my coaches and teammates, they're always helping me. It gets to be a bit much sometimes. And I want to help other people. It fills my spiritual cup more. Your spiritual cup. Yeah. I think that if your hand's closed to give, you can't be open to receive kind of thing. I think that the more that I can give to people, the more that I can give myself. And I think that just like plants and animals, the way if you look at nature, everything is a symbiotic relationship. I think that humans can be the same way. That's an interesting way of looking at things. Have you always looked at things like that? No. I shouldn't say not always, but I always was a person that wanted to be outside, wanted to be in nature. I grew up in an urban jungle in Milwaukee and just concrete everywhere. No place to go outside except for just playing in the alleys and stuff. My lineage is from Lithuania where they're very into nature and they're pagans and like slash Christian. So they really, just my whole family, they come from living off the land and stuff like that. And so that's always been something I wanted to do. I'll just put it in this situation, just to try and do martial arts and trying to control my emotions and stuff, just living in this chaotic environment that I grew up in. And nature is where I felt the most peace at. So that's always something that I connected with. And then the more that I kind of focus on nature and animals and stuff like that, I noticed that there's a, I don't know, I try to live my life the same way. Well, it's just interesting leading up to that fight too, that you are kind of like the antidote to a lot of the things that people get annoyed at in MMA. All the trash talking and all the negativity and all the fighting at press conferences. You just shut all that shit down with Joanna. I mean, there needs to be balance. I mean, I like entertainment. I should talk sometimes too. But there just has to be a balance. It has to be honest too. If you really feel this way about somebody, if you're really upset with this person, yeah, I say how you feel. Like don't just go out of your way just to be entertaining because you think it's going to be funny or something, or you think it's just going to be like, it's not genuine. Right. Right. But it was just the way you handled yourself. Because her whole thing is talking shit. Her whole thing is scaring people. I'm the boogie woman. Come and go get you. Yeah. All that stuff. And you were just dead faced. And I think that fucked her head up. I really did. You ever see that video? Like the, what was that video? How to humble a bully? How to humble a bully? Well, not that one. The one you just showed me earlier was like, is this dude like standing in front of an elephant? Oh yeah. There's a guy. And he started charging at him. And then he was like calm, you know? That guy got lucky. Yeah. That guy got lucky. Very lucky. He got lucky that the elephant really didn't want to trample him. Yeah, we just watched it. The elephant is coming through in his light. Yeah, I've seen that. Remember running. The guy just stands there in one spot and stops. That guy got lucky. But yeah, I think that's just- Don't try that at home dude. No. Yeah, no. Yeah, not ever tight in that at all. But that's a different thing obviously because you're talking about an animal. Right, right. But it's just, I think it's a good analogy to draw from like Ioana's energy. She was very chaotic and very in my face and very threatening. Intimidating. Yeah. And like, yeah, don't go out of your way to stand in front of an elephant that's running at you. Don't put yourself in that position. But I had to be there. That's my job, you know? Right. So when you're in those situations where you don't know what to do, you just stay calm. Yeah. Well, you didn't just stay calm. You stayed eerily calm. You were like, reciting the Lord's Prayer when I asked you that. I was like, whoa. I was like, what are you saying over there? And you're like, I'm reciting the Lord's Prayer. Like, whoa. Yeah. It was heavy. Honestly, because like the whole training camp was just crazy. But like that week in particular, like I was convinced that this might be my last fight. This might be my last day on earth. Like I was so just like ready for anything at that point. Why were you thinking there might be your last fight? I don't know. I'm crazy. I don't know. I think I started to think that almost like every fight is because it's a crazy way to make a living. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. But it's the best thing in the world, especially the all of the all of the stressors that came along with this fight in particular, especially all of those like and then we have. But we've had in that fight, we had a we had a few like kind of I don't want to say magical moments, but say, for instance, we bring Misha with us everywhere we go. Your dog. Yeah. Our flight was delayed three hours, four hours. And when we landed, we landed like a few hours after that truck drove through the park and killed all the people in New York, which was right by our hotel, which if we would have been there on time, we would have feel signed the posters and then been outside at a park walking Misha. So I mean, just little things like like that, like we would have been outside maybe at that spot and had been witness to that thing. Or at least would have heard it or something that would affect me. And the Antifa march. Yeah. And there is just all this stuff about, you know, like people are going to be protesting and stuff like that. And they even like the day of the fight. And I just get a lot of anxiety over that stuff. I get anxiety over like big crowds of people. And it's like, you know, it's feeling crazy. You know, and it's. Yeah, I just I wasn't even just thinking about the fight when you want to. It was more than that. You know, it was like what all her energy represented to me, like all my past, like just negative people that, you know, you know, want to want to strike fear into your heart. You know, and I wasn't going to let that happen, even though I was scared. But you know, I just I wasn't going to stop doing what I was doing just because of that. But you were eerily focused. Like one time she stuck her fist in your face and touched your face. You didn't even move. Yeah. Because I know she needed a reaction from me. You know, it's just like it's just like with anybody, you know, if you don't give energy to something negative, you don't feed the fire, you know. Yeah, that's got to be a mind fuck for her, though, right? Right. People reacting to her and headbutting, you know, going head to head with her and trying to show her. And you just stayed calm. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, it's it's either you really I mean, it's either one or two things either you really dislike me enough to like, you know, put your hands on me outside of the competition or as fate, you know, or as a character or you're just doing this for show. You know, it's either one of the two. And I just don't think she's really a bad person. I just think that, you know, she's put in this position and maybe she you know, that's what she felt like she had to do. Well, I wrote something about the Volcan Ozdemir Daniel Cormier fight the other day that what Ozdemir was trying to do and what Cormier was trying to do is like they're trying to sow seeds of doubt that you're trying to there's a real issue with someone that's about to fight where you're about to compete. And it's this crazy nerve wracking thing. And the unknown is always there. You don't know what's going to happen. So someone can convince you I'm going to fuck you up. You're like, God damn, is he going to fuck me up? Yeah, start thinking it if you if it's in your head. And that one of the things that Daniel said in that fight was that there's there's levels to this thing. Like you think you're going to come in and fuck me up? This is crazy. This is not you're not you haven't experienced it. Right. And that's something that I you know, I have a lot of respect for you want to sell, you know, and I think it's great that I was put in this position to face her because I had to get better in order. Like I had to get up to that level to face her. And I had to do a lot of research and work on my mental stability. She kept saying I was mentally unstable. Like, you know, those phone calls and stuff like the conference calls beforehand. And I was like, I feel like you were mentally unstable. I don't know. Because Rose is mentally unstable. Yeah. Well, my dad, she was correct. Like in what way? I mean, well, I don't know. To me, I can't speak for myself, but like it's just it's just a. Please do. I mean, I'm sorry. I could go over. Okay. It's just it's it's like everyone getting ready for a fight. It's there are some people who can be excited about the fight the entire time and they don't give a shit about anything. And they just they just love it. And then there's also the ones who who get ready for a fight and while getting ready for the fight, it's nerve wracking. And especially with all of the boogie woman and all the you're mentally unstable and then in the history with her dad and her history growing up and just all of those things come into a head. This was exactly what Rose wanted to be the scariest possible situation for her to be in New York with the end with the Antifa March that happened in front of the hotel the morning of we almost didn't make it to the fight. I don't know, man. It's like somebody asked me, like, what's different since you've been champ? And I'm like, really? I'm just sitting here trying to figure out what's different, you know, like, obviously you're sitting here talking to me like that's cool. But I want to talk to you before. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of cool to talk to you now that this crazy thing happened. Right. Right. So, yeah, I mean, things are different. You know, like I definitely noticed more more people recognizing me. But you have a very unique look to with your shaved head. Yeah, I can't hide. Don't worry. You have to wear the movies, right? Right. Right. Yeah. And you guys are going to fight again in April back in New York. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be cool. The girls come to Brooklyn. The girls is coming to Brooklyn. What when you when the fight was over, what did you what did you take some time off? Like, how did you did it? Did it even sink in? Like, oh, yeah, we had to go. We had to get the fuck out of there. We had to go home. Like, like all that stuff, like the, you know, the truck accident and like the protests and all this, you know, paranoia that I had, I had to hide away. I'm a hermit. So like, I like to like to be. But we went straight to the airport. Two thirty two thirty in the morning. Our flight wasn't until nine a.m. Yeah. We heard there was gonna be a marathon. Right. Yeah. The next day. Yeah. We heard there's gonna be a marathon, but also Rose did what she did. And as soon as it happened, we all went, oh, fuck. I feel like I robbed a bank. Everybody be cool. Just keep smiling. Wow. Yeah, that was. I mean, obviously I knew that was going to happen. Like, I actually, I actually envisioned me knocking her out with like an uppercut in the third round because I thought she's going to be like overly aggressive after a certain point as she would get frustrated. That didn't happen because it, you know, she thought I was throwing a jab. But yeah. Why do you think that I mean, when you went into that fight, she was such an overwhelming favorite. She was thought of as being one of the pound for pound top fighters in any way class. And why did you think you were going to knock her out? Because everybody tries to take her down. Everybody's so desperate for the takedown that it's like her striking. I mean, this from what I see is I mean, I said across from Valentina Shechenko and like we go like back and forth. Like it's not a thing to me. Like I got pepper, Patty G Berry in my corner. I got Trevor Whitman in my corner and I've done Taekwondo striking like my whole life. Like it's not something that I've never seen before, you know, and just that Dutch solid cape boxing. Like it's great. It's hard. It's very intimidating to send across from. But you can, you know, it's very rhythmic on the beat. Like it's not, I don't know. It's just something that it looks scary, but it's not to be scared of, you know. It's interesting the way you're putting it because most people thought of her as being like this very solid. Her fundamentals are rock solid. She's incredibly technical, vicious jab. Yeah. You know, but you just saw that the rhythm was predictable. I mean, we knew everything she was going to do before she did it. We've been watching it for a long time, you know, like and she is the the like, I mean, she's the most dominant female. Like these girls could not hang with her, you know. And she's still the best out there, you know. You know, I've been on the radar since she beat Carla. Like we knew that that was the fight since she beat Carla. And it was just a matter of how were we going to get there? Like what route were we going to take to get there? And so when the fight came around a big, a big, this whole, this entire training camp was mental. It wasn't physical. The whole training camp every day was mental mentality, mind, mental, mental, strength, just mental, mental, mental, the entire training camp. And one of the keys to the fight was knowing what she's going to do before she does it. And I mean, not just in the fight, but in the interviews, in the press conference, backstage, backstage. Like we we we knew everything that was going to happen and it all happened exactly the way we knew it was going to. Wow. Yeah. This was this was an excellent dissection of a person, of an athlete. Now what is it feeling like having gone through that, having accomplished it, having literally blown it out of the water, right? You smashed in the first round. Crazy moment. Yeah. Now you got to do it again. I know. Yeah. That's the tough part. What's the thought? What's the thought process? Um, you know, just, uh, you can't make the, uh, what was the saying? He always say, I don't know. I'm going to miss it. But yeah, you can't paint the Mona Lisa twice, you know, like, so it can't be the same approach. You know, it has to be something different. It has to be, um, but you know, at the same time, if it ain't broke, don't fix it either. So like, uh, it's gotta be a combination of like, yeah, we're going to keep doing what we're doing, but you know, keep getting better. Obviously all the time. That's always the strategy. Like we don't, we don't prepare for one in particular person. It's always we're roses on the road to getting her black belt. And that's what the, that's what the mission is. I mean, of course, uh, we, we do get into particulars based on who it is, but that's only for a very short period of time. The whole goal is just to make Rose a black belt in every, in grappling, wrestling, striking, and it just in life and interviews, everything, just, just become a black belt, become a master of all of it. And that's been, that's been the goal. Like even, um, another, like he was saying the mentality of this last training camp, it wasn't just like, uh, you know, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna journal, which I do, you know, journal that we're all like, you know, like we talked about just doing like a float tank or something like that. Like those little mental exercises are great, but also like, um, uh, working on creativity. What's up? I was about to say I just, I was just doing the number of ice baths you took. Oh yeah. I did a lot of ice baths. I said, yeah. The last one was the worst. Every day, every day, but like every day to a point where it actually became challenging for me to get the water colder. Cause I was like, this is ridiculous. How should you get in and with it under now it's gotten to a point now it's been under 25 seconds. Like the, you know, when you first get it's like, boom, right? Like it's under 20 seconds, under 20 seconds. She's just stone face. It's just amazing. Yeah. The last one that I did, like it was hurting so bad. I was like crying. Like I never had ice baths where I started crying like cause it hurts a bit. But anyway, like, yeah. So that, and then I find a lot of benefit from that. Yeah. Yeah. I do. Like I, I mean the, yeah, reduction of inflammation. Mm hmm. Yeah. And then just like mentally and emotionally too. Um, you know, cause it's like, why is this so scary? But it hurts, you know? Um, but it's, it's good. I mean, if you can get in the cold ice baths and nobody's standing across from you is going to scare you. It's nothing scarier than the cold, but uh.