My Fight / Your Fight (37 page)

We had decided to train at home the entire camp as we prepared for McMann. I had been on the road so much that year that all I wanted was to be home. But there have been times when I felt I needed to change my environment. Ahead of the Carmouche fight, we headed up to train in the altitude and the quiet of Big Bear. It's easier to change your mind-set if you change your environment. It's hard to sit on the couch and then suddenly be like, “Oh I'm in camp now.”

No matter where I am, I end that first week of camp feeling strong and energized.

Week 5

During Week 5, I start my diet. Right before my fight with Tate, I realized I needed to find a better way to make weight. After a decade, deprivation dieting was taking its toll. Not only was it a super-unhealthy approach, but it didn't work. I reached out to Mike Dolce, who serves as a nutritionist for a number of fighters in the UFC. It was worth it. For the first time in a camp, I never felt weak. (While Dolce works with fighters, his diet is really for anyone. He has written several Dolce Diet cookbooks, and I highly recommend them.) I worked with him for the month before UFC 168, and I have used him for every camp since.

Starting in Week 5, Dolce sends me a new diet every week. But the plan is flexible. Every morning, I weigh in. I'll text my weight to him and then he'll text me back, “OK, change this meal today” or “You're doing great.” He changes things up according to what he thinks I need nutritionally as well as to get my weight where it needs to be.

When I started working with Dolce, my entire relationship with food changed. I no longer had to figure out what the right thing to eat was. I no longer doubted myself and the decisions that I was making. When I started working with Dolce, I felt guilty for being so full all the time. Then one day during the McMann camp, it clicked:
Oh, I'm supposed to be full.
For a long time, the feeling of being full and the feeling of guilt were synonymous to me. But now, I've stopped feeling bad about it.

Communication is the key with Dolce. I keep in constant contact to let him know how my body is responding to the diet, how I am feeling, and he makes the necessary tweaks. Dinners involve things like chili or scrambles. If I say “I ate so much that I'm so full after dinner,” he might tell me that I can skip my before-bed snack. In between meals, I get things like fruit, nuts, or yogurt with chia seeds. I rarely cook, but Marina is my roommate and helps make my food or cuts the ingredients up and puts them in Ziploc bags so even my culinarily-challenged ass can whip something up.

I box with Edmond. I grapple by doing either judo with my longtime training partner Justin Flores or wrestling with Martin Berberyan or by doing Brazilian Jiujitsu with brothers Ryron and Rener Gracie. Each partner is different. I have known Justin since I was an eleven-year-old kid doing judo and he used to babysit me and try to sit and fart on me. Martin ran wrestling at SK Golden Boys and is a three-time Olympian and a world medalist. He is quiet and calm. Rener and Ryron are outgoing and fun. They have a very different ground game from me, and I love to trade ideas with them. The varying personalities and styles balance each other out.

Depending on my opponent, Edmond brings in outside sparring partners. If I'm going up against a striker, he'll bring in girls who are world champions in boxing or kickboxing.

He starts calling other coaches and asking, “Hey, do you have anyone around this size and skill level?”

But if my challenger is a grappler, he mostly only has me go up against guys. McMann had won an Olympic silver medal in wrestling, so in preparation for her, I grappled and wrestled a lot. But it's also a matter of excelling where your opponent is weakest so you can capitalize on those vulnerabilities.

Monday to Friday, I work out twice a day. I leave my house at nine in the morning to be at practice by ten, work out for an hour and a half, shower, sleep, and repeat. I basically do whatever Edmond thinks I should be doing. I really leave a lot of planning up to him and just do what he tells me. Saturdays, I only have MMA sparring. Then on Sundays, I rest. Outside of camp, I'll train every single day, but in camp, I really rest. I get home exhausted at around eight p.m. I make my food, hang out with Mochi, and then read before bed.

I used to think I had to be miserable to earn success. But I've lost that need and realized that it's very old-fashioned. Boxing great Mike Tyson said “a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter.” I think he's right. I'm happier—and more dangerous—now than I've ever been.

Week 4

In Week 4, we start to pick it up. Between practices, I like to nap. I used to get a temporary apartment during camp, but then I just started blocking off a room at a nearby hotel three days a week for the last month of camp. I rest at the hotel between workouts, but go home to sleep in my own bed at night.

I am almost totally isolated from the outside world during camp, emerging only to do media. I have no energy to see family or friends. I don't dread any part of the process, even the hardest parts. I just take a deep breath and focus on performing the best I can. I've grown to embrace delayed gratification so much that I even appreciate going through the most challenging parts. I collapse in bed every night, proud of the work I've done and savoring the hours of rest I've earned.

During camp, Edmond is the boss. It's my coach's job to make me do things I don't want to do, especially when it comes to preparing me for a fight. I don't argue with him, because if I get to a point where I get an attitude that “I don't feel like doing this” or “I'm not going to do it because I'm badass,” then the whole machine falls apart.

This is also when we begin getting into the mental aspect of the fight and the game plan against my opponent. We look at her tendencies, anticipating how she might try to approach me and what I can do to throw her off her game. We analyze her strengths and weaknesses and look at ways to exploit any holes. The goal is to create a situation where I feel completely in control and she feels completely overwhelmed.

It was during Week 4 of the McMann camp that I started dropping everybody in the gym with a liver shot, a knee or punch directly to the liver. The danger of a liver shot is the pain is so intense it incapacitates a person temporarily. One clean liver shot, and you're done.

Weeks 5 and 4 are hard, but Week 3 is the hardest.

Week 3

Week 3 is “Hard Week.” Week 3 is the peak of the training camp. It's the week where I do the most of everything. It's the week where I hit the bag more. It's the week where I hit the mitts more. It's the week where I have the most sparring. It's the week where I go the most rounds in practice, where I fight the most minutes. Sparring is the most important part, because it's the closest thing to an actual fight. The mitt work is tactical, but when you're sparring, you're fighting. A full-length championship fight can go five five-minute rounds, so Edmond has me do six rounds. That way, I know, if it ever came down to it, I could go five rounds in the Octagon and keep firing.

We don't have a set schedule to watch video of my opponent's past fights, but we are definitely watching film three weeks out. We're analyzing what she does, breaking her down, looking for patterns, and identifying opportunities.

By the end of Week 3, I feel completely torn down. Literally, when I'm not training during Week 3, I just lie on the mat or floor or bed or anywhere flat, exhausted and think,
Fuck.
Week 3 pushes me mentally to the edge, which spills over into Week 2.

Week 2

In Week 2, two-week-itis hits. It's when I get my most nervous. Before Week 2, the fight seems like it's far off. Three weeks is close to a month, and a month is a long time. But two weeks out, it starts getting real. The fight is about to happen. Two weeks out is when I'm at my most emotional. I cry over everything, even more than I usually cry over everything.

My body is the most torn down, because I just finished “Hard Week,” and I'm entering “Speed Week.”

Week 2 is Speed Week, because it's all about short rounds, just being fast, working on footwork, bringing my speed and explosiveness back, things like that. Week 2 is where I'm getting very, very light. We cut down on the sparring and make the rounds very short. It's all about being quick the whole week.

By the end of the week, we do a lot of the playful stuff. Edmond starts bringing out things that are like games, throwing and catching the balls to keep my eyes sharp. He cuts pool noodles in half and whacks me with them. He flicks towels at my head and makes me dodge them. Week 2 is when he gets really creative. He tries to make me really happy during that week. He even asks me to wear bright colors, because he thinks it lightens the mood. Once I get over crying for the first few days, Week 2 is actually the most fun week.

As the fight gets closer, I get tired of being nervous. By the time I'm actually leaving for the fight, I'm just so excited to do what I am the best in the world at that I'm not even nervous anymore. Now, I'm just impatient, eager to enter the Octagon and handle business.

Fight Week

Fight Week is the final week of camp, the countdown to Fight Night. I fight on Saturdays.

On Monday night, I pack all my stuff, which is more throwing everything I can possibly think I will need in my bags and inevitably forgetting something.

On Tuesday morning, we all meet at the gym. If my fight is in Vegas, we drive. We meet at the gym and leave late morning in an automotive caravan. It's Edmond, Martin, Marina, Justin, me, and a few other people from the gym. I like the road trip, but when I'm going to Vegas for a fight, I don't want to drive. I slip into the passenger seat and someone else takes the wheel.

In the days ahead of the fight, I get artificially heavy. A week out, I'll start eating a bunch of salt and drinking two gallons of water a day. When you water load, you put as much water in your body as possible, and get super, super-duper hydrated. Your body gets used to putting out so much water, that even after you cut the salt, your body keeps flushing the water out for a few more days. I bloat up from the water. My weight is usually 146 when I leave in the morning. By the time I get to Vegas, I'm usually five pounds heavier, because I'm so full of water. As we drive, I'm drinking constantly. At every exit, I'm like, “I gotta pee. I gotta pee. I gotta pee.”

We listen to music the whole way there, and as we pull into Vegas, I blast Joan Jett's “Bad Reputation” as a prelude of what's to come.

When we get into Vegas, the first stop is the UFC offices. I check in with them, usually sign some posters or something. Dolce meets me and checks my weight. From there, I check into the hotel. Dolce has me eat. I chill out for a bit. I'll do one workout in the evening just to sweat and lose weight, then eat whatever Dolce tells me to eat. Then go to bed.

Fight Week Wednesday, I have a lot of media. It's when they do all the little media snippets. We film the prefight interviews that people see coming up on the big screen before we walk out. It's my least favorite interview to do ever, because they try to feed you things to say and it pisses me off.

After that, I do a photo shoot where they take pictures of me holding the belt for posters for the next fight. It's taken assuming that I'm going to win, which I always do. This way, when the next fight comes up, they already have the promotional pictures.

Wednesday is the last day I really get to eat meals. Dolce drops off a cooler of food for me with salad, chia bowls, vegetable stir-fry, maybe an egg omelet, fruit, and little trail mix snacks. It has all my waters and everything I could possibly need to eat that day.

Thursday is press conference day. In addition to the press conference, that's when I do individual interviews for a few hours. After that's done, I'm pretty much left alone as far as obligations until the next day's weigh-in. The media circus over, my focus shifts to making weight. I cannot weigh even a fraction of an ounce over 135 pounds at the weigh-in.

I'll go train again, just to get a sweat on. This is when I really start my weight cut. In the days ahead of a fight, my weight generally looks like this: Tuesday, I'm 151. By Wednesday, I'm already 148. Thursday, before I even start the cut, I'm usually around 146. Then I'll start taking the baths to lose water and usually get down from 146 to 138.

Thursday morning, I stop chugging water and start sipping it. By afternoon, I really start cutting my water. One mistake many people make is that they cut out the water way too soon. They'll be cutting water out all week. I only cut water for the last twenty-four hours. Thursday evening, I'll check my weight, train, check it again, and then take a couple of baths to work up a sweat before bed. Thursday nights, I am hungry and dehydrated and I don't sleep that well.

Then I'll wake up between 138 and 137 on Friday morning, take a couple more baths to lose the last two pounds before the weigh-in and hit 135. I no longer feel the stress I used to feel when I was cutting weight for judo.

Friday is when we have the weigh-in and the stare-down. I head down to the weigh-in ready to fight. During weigh-ins, some chicks come in and they try to act tough while others come in dresses or bikinis, trying to look hot. I want to be ready to throw down right there if need be. If my opponent tries to get rowdy onstage and I have to show her what rowdy really is, I want to be the one that could hold it down right there.

Once we've both weighed in, the two fighters face off for the stare-down. Looking into McMann's eyes, I thought,
I'm going to fucking destroy you tomorrow.

After weigh-ins, Edmond disappears. He checks in on me, but he lets me be. I go backstage with my family—my mom, usually my sister Maria, her husband, my nieces, on rare occasions, my sisters Jennifer or Julia—and security leads us through the hidden tunnels back to my room. I drink water to rehydrate and eat whatever Dolce has put together for me.