JRE MMA Show #29 with Cat Zingano

Joe Rogan (0:00)

Here we go, four, three, two, one.

And we're live, Cat. How are you? Good to see you here.

Cat Zingano (0:10)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

My pleasure. I've been looking forward to talking to you for a while.

Cat Zingano (0:14)

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.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about always. You're getting ready for Boise. That's your next fight?

Cat Zingano (0:26)

Who are you fighting? Marriain Renaud, July 14th, in the CenturyLink Arena.

Joe Rogan (0:32)

Now, you took a good stretch off, right?

Cat Zingano (0:37)

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 Ronda February 28th. And then after Ronda 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.

Joe Rogan (1:14)

Yeah, and you were doing some crazy therapy too, right? Some interesting stuff down in San Diego.

Cat Zingano (1:21)

Yeah, so there's been a few things I've been working on. 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 Big Farm, but one thing that fighting has gotten me and stuff with, 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 getting hit in the head a lot. Go figure, right? Yeah, go figure. So, within all of that, I've just had medical problems and things that I'm constantly working on, and I feel really good. I'm constantly improving, but one thing I was feeling a little bit stuck on was, one, some of the endocrine problem issues.

But I went to this facility in San Diego. It was called Mindset, and actually the UFC sent me there because we have USADA, we have all of these things.

After fighting Amanda, I got my head pounded for a good four minutes there.

I had a TBI afterwards. So that was like immediately lowered my estrogen, lowered my DHEA, my testosterone, and I'm hypothyroid. I will always be hypothyroid now.

Joe Rogan (2:46)

After that fight?

Cat Zingano (2:48)

And still toughed it out, still was trying to do what I could to go and fight Ronda as soon as I did afterwards. And part of my game plan is don't get hit, which means let's just dart at her and see what happens.

So that's what happens when you do that.

Joe Rogan (3:03)

Yeah, so people don't know TBI is Traumatic Brain Injury, just in case someone is listening to this doesn't understand what we're talking about. And then in the Ronda 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.

Cat Zingano (3:16)

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 over, you know. But I mean, even her coaches were like, I mean, you did what you're supposed to do there and she just got you, you know. So that would be an awesome fight to be able to revisit one day.

She even said we'd do it. I mean, who knows? Her career is so open right now.

Joe Rogan (3:40)

I don't think she's ever gonna fight again.

Cat Zingano (3:42)

She don't need to.

Joe Rogan (3:43)

Yeah.

Cat Zingano (3:43)

She really doesn't need to.

Joe Rogan (3:44)

I don't think she wants to, you know. I think, I don't 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 shit going on that was other than fighting.

And then it was also, look, the sport has evolved so rapidly and the women's MMA has gotten so high level so quickly. And I'm sure you saw Amanda's last fight with Raquel Pennington. I'm like, holy shit.