JRE MMA Show #66 with Michelle Waterson

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Two, one. Hello, Michelle.

Michelle Waterson (0:04)

How's it going? I was getting ready to crack my neck.

Joe Rogan (0:07)

Go ahead, crack your neck. Put the microphone to it so we can hear it. Does it pop?

Oh, that was a good one. That was a good one. Do you do that all the time?

Michelle Waterson (0:18)

Just when I'm getting ready to throw down? Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

Pull this microphone like a fist from your face. There we go.

Michelle Waterson (0:24)

Is that better?

Joe Rogan (0:25)

Yeah, perfect. So what's happening?

Michelle Waterson (0:27)

No, we're just in town. My brother-in-law just moved, just got stationed here in California. So we drove him down and then we did the whole Disney thing.

No, I think it's actually an hour south of here, I think. It's not close by, but...

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Cool.

Michelle Waterson (0:47)

Air Force. So we did the whole Disney thing.

Joe Rogan (0:52)

I know where that is.

Michelle Waterson (0:53)

Yeah, so we got stationed there.

Joe Rogan (0:54)

That was the first time I ever saw a stealth bomber.

It was like, right after 9-1-1, we were filming Fear Factor out there, and I saw one fly overhead. It's like a UFO. It was like, wow, that is crazy.

Michelle Waterson (1:07)

Does it look like a UFO?

Joe Rogan (1:08)

Yeah, it doesn't even look real. You ever seen one in real life?

Michelle Waterson (1:10)

I've never.

Joe Rogan (1:11)

It looks like a Batmobile, like Batman's plane.

It's so crazy. When you see one flying, you're like, wow, the engineering involved in something like that. It's insane.

Michelle Waterson (1:21)

And that was a while back.

Joe Rogan (1:22)

Yeah.

Michelle Waterson (1:22)

Was this Fear Factor?

Joe Rogan (1:23)

Sure. It was 2001, because it was right after 9-11. So it was 2000 That's it right there.

That's what we saw.

Michelle Waterson (1:29)

That's one of them.

Joe Rogan (1:29)

One of them?

Michelle Waterson (1:30)

There's a B-2, and this is like a F-116 or something like that.

Joe Rogan (1:33)

I don't know which one we saw, but it was black and wicked looking.

Michelle Waterson (1:37)

Nice.

That's crazy. It looks like your Tesla.

Joe Rogan (1:41)

Flying around in one of those things. That's what we thought.

Michelle Waterson (1:44)

Well, imagine back then. That's what it looked like back then. So what is there now?

Joe Rogan (1:48)

You probably can't see them. They probably look like the sky.

Michelle Waterson (1:51)

Probably.

Joe Rogan (1:52)

Are you from a military background?

Michelle Waterson (1:53)

My dad, yeah. My dad was, so that's where my parents met. My dad was stationed in Germany.

My mom was fleeing Thailand to, her first husband was physically abusive to her. So she was leaving Thailand, and she came to Germany to find her a GI, and then found my dad.

Joe Rogan (2:13)

She came to find a GI specifically?

Michelle Waterson (2:15)

Well, you know, I think she was coming to get away, but she wanted a better life for her son at the time. And my dad was in the hospital, and so my mom was taking care of him, and cooking him food, and made him fall in love.

Joe Rogan (2:31)

There you go.

Michelle Waterson (2:33)

And my dad always jokes. He tells us a story all the time. He's like, yeah, your mom was taking care of me, and then she told me that you were pregnant, and then 12 months later, you were born.

Joe Rogan (2:44)

Oh, that's funny.

Michelle Waterson (2:47)

So, but no, they fell in love, and...

Joe Rogan (2:51)

It was just a really long pregnancy, just weird. Just kind of weird.

Michelle Waterson (2:56)

I don't know.

But I was very small, but no, yeah. And then, so, then we moved to Colorado, and I was born. Then we lived in Germany for a little bit when I was younger, and then back to Colorado, and I grew up in Aurora, Colorado.

Joe Rogan (3:10)

Oh, cool. When did you start training?

Michelle Waterson (3:13)

Probably around 10

Joe Rogan (3:14)

Yeah?

Michelle Waterson (3:15)

Yeah, around 10 And I have an older brother. He's four years older than me. He's my half-brother. And I really wanted to do gymnastics as a kid, and my parents just, we just couldn't afford it. It was really expensive. And so my brother found a little karate spot at the church just across the street, and it was a community, like a community karate thing, and so it was something that all three of us could do.