Through My Father's Eyes (2019) Movie Script

As the years pass by
but no memories fade...
every step I take,
the mistakes that I've made...
yet his words still echo,
scream loud in my ears...
but I just can't remember
after all these years.
Every once in a while,
you cross paths with someone
who changes the meaning
or definition,
of what you think is possible.
In a world full of creeks
and ponds,
I was finally introduced
to an ocean.
I first met Ronda back in 2010.
She was sitting right here,
sweat-stained and beautiful.
But beauty didn't hide a spirit
and a fire
of someone I knew
was on a mission.
Yeah, she was special.
But nothing ever came easy
for Ronda.
When she was born,
they thought she was dead.
On a cold winter day in 1987,
a tiny Ronda Jean Rousey
brought chaos
into the local Riverside Community
delivery room.
I don't have a pulse.
What's it look like?
Not clear. It's unclear.
She went unresponsive.
Hypoxia had brought
Ronda's little heart
to a sudden and abrupt stop.
I'm not sure
she's gonna make it.
Doctors fought for
what seemed to be an eternity
to cut her umbilical cord
from around her neck
and then administered child CPR.
It's the only time
I ever saw my husband cry.
I mean, when she was born,
he... we thought she was dead.
Little did we know,
this tiny,
little fighting spirit
would change the perception
of women in sports,
some 20 years later.
This entire crowd
is on their feet
for the arrival
of the first ever.
UFC Women's Bantamweight
champion,
Rowdy Ronda Rousey.
This is a gigantic cultural
moment, Mike.
This is not just a moment
for Ronda Rousey.
This is a moment
for women's sports, period.
She's changing sports,
she's changing culture.
This is a huge moment
and we can't think
of any better person
to carry the weight
of this moment.
It was just
before Christmas in 2010...
when I received a call
from my producing partner,
Pete Antico.
He wanted me to interview
his friend of 30 years,
the Godfather of Grappling,
"Judo" Gene LeBell.
I arrived in the heart
of North Hollywood
at the Hayastan gym,
home of MMA great,
Gokor Chivichyan.
Gene, of course, lived up
to his larger-than-life reputation.
And if somebody has...
a bad attitude here,
comes in with a chip
on his shoulder,
we give him what we call
an "attitude adjustment."
But it was someone else
who caught my eye.
In the midst of all the blood,
sweat and tears
was a beautiful young girl.
Her name was Ronda Rousey.
I know you teach men here,
but do you teach women?
Do you teach women to fight?
Only pretty ones.
But the ugly ones, no.
Well, in here we've got the first
woman world champion... judo.
And this is
her beautiful daughter, Ronda,
and, uh, she won a medal
in the Olympics.
She's had two matches,
and both of them have lasted...
less than a round,
- less than a minute, right?
- Yes.
I'm gonna leave you
'cause I've got to get back
to the men
'cause they're easier.
When we went down
to the gym, we met Ronda,
and I brought, of course,
my partner,
Gary Stretch, with me.
And after one meeting,
he asked me
if Gary would work with Ronda,
you know, boxing, because I had told him
he could fight a little bit.
Presenting the former undefeated.
Light Middleweight Champion
of England, Gary Stretch!
Yeah, he can fight a little bit.
Ronda intrigued me.
What is this beautiful, young girl
doing in a male-dominated
world of MMA?
My curiosity had got
the better of me,
and I wanted to find out more.
So off I went to Santa Monica
to meet her amazing mother,
AnnMaria.
Who took me back
to the very beginning.
An Apgar Score is what you get
when a baby is born.
It's from, like, zero to ten,
and essentially zero means
you have a dead baby.
You know, that there's no...
They're not breathing,
they're blue,
there's no muscular tone,
there's no reflex.
Right when they're first born,
and then they do it again
after a minute.
And I think her first one
was zero.
And then, the next one
I think was a three.
So it means they got her
breathing then,
and she had a lot of problems
early on
that they thought stemmed
from that.
They're delayed in learning
to talk.
She would have problems
with frustration.
Okay, if she got frustrated,
you know, she would kick us.
When she was little,
she was just really upset
- because she couldn't talk.
- So she hasn't changed at all.
She would try to say things
and it wouldn't come out.
She would say,
"I want the 'globalol.'"
It was... "What?"
It was just heartbreaking
and she...
I remember she said to me,
"Mom..."
one time, "Mom, I'm dumb."
I said, "You're not dumb."
She says, "No, I'm dumb. Maria, Jennifer."
And she couldn't even say
Jennifer's name. "They know the words."
I don't know the words."
Really, I didn't talk
until I was six.
I would say things,
I would know what I meant,
but what came out of my mouth
was, like, gibberish.
So, did your mom understand you?
Um, no. It turns out my sisters
were the ones
that understand me.
I'd go, "Blah, blah, blah,"
and they're like, "Oh, she wants
chocolate milk and cookies."
Like, I don't know.
I had my own little language.
And, uh, she actually
has a long, funny story about me
trying to get
a birthday present one year
and asking for a "ballgrin,"
and it turns out a "ballgrin"
was a Hulk Hogan
wrestling buddy.
That's how I said Hulk Hogan
was "ballgrin."
It wasn't a conscious thing,
but we... Jen and I knew
what she was saying.
Even when my mom
couldn't make anything out,
her, you know,
her preschool teachers,
nobody could make it out,
but Jen and I just knew.
When Ronda was three years old,
due to a gunshot
too close to home
and the escalating crime
in Riverside,
the family decided to move
to Minot, North Dakota
with a population
of 40,000 people.
It was actually
because of my speech problem,
my speech therapist said
that I had to spend
more one-on-one time
with a parent
because my sisters
were talking for me a lot.
They lived in two separate houses
because, you know,
North Dakota's a big state
and he worked in Devil's Lake
and she worked in Minot.
So, during the week
I'd spend all my time with him.
- Just with him?
- Just with him, so, yeah,
- I was total Daddy's Girl.
- So you had a very special bond.
- Yeah.
- No boys in the family?
I was the closest thing they had.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Tell me about that.
Well, apparently my dad swore
that I was going to be a boy,
and the whole pregnancy,
he was like,
"It's gonna be a boy.
It's gonna be Ron,
Ronald Junior,"
or something like that.
- Is your dad's name Ron?
- Yeah, his name's Ron.
Ronald John Rousey.
So then it turns out I was a girl.
So then he was like Ron-da.
Yeah, that's the only one
I got in school, Ron-da.
I was always worried about her,
and he's just, "Don't worry."
He would take her out
to his workshop and say,
"We're gonna make a gun,"
and she would draw.
She's a really good artist.
And she would draw something
on a piece of paper
and he would go
and get some machine
in the workshop and cut the gun out
and make a wood gun,
and they would go out
in his four-wheel drive
and drive around
and he would have his
real pistol and his gun
and she would have her
little wood gun
and do all this crazy stuff.
Ronda's father said,
"You could be a champion
of anything you want.
You're gonna be
an Olympic swimming champion."
Yes, everyone was, like,
really worried about me
all the time,
and my dad was the one
that always told me that,
"You know, you're a sleeper."
You're gonna show everybody.
"You're going to the Olympics
one day"
and he said, "She's fine.
She'll come out of it",
and she's gonna surprise
everybody."
Ronda's father flew out
to New York state
where I was training,
and asked me to marry him
about three weeks
before the world championship.
And I told him
I would think about it,
which didn't please him
very much,
but I told him
he should be happy
because he was the only one
in the running.
He was the kind of guy
that if you met him,
he would give you the impression
that his whole purpose
in getting up that morning
was to meet you, you know?
When people talk about someone
being a people person...
When my mom and Ron got married,
that's what two people
who really love each other,
that's what a marriage is like.
They were completely in love.
They had, you know... I mean,
nobody has a perfect marriage.
You know, they argued
at times and things,
but they were always
on the same page,
and they always really wanted
what was best for us.
It's kind of sad for my mom
'cause I could tell that,
like...
she's never fully come back
from that.
What happened?
Well, my dad had a disease
that was, like,
one in a million people.
It's called
Bernard-Soulier syndrome,
and...
it's similar to hemophilia,
like your platelets are too big
and too few.
They can't link together,
so when you get cut or you bleed,
you can't clot your blood.
We all went sledding one day
and we had these huge hills,
like, around the house,
we lived in the country
in Minot, North Dakota,
you know, and I must
have been like, you know,
four years old
or something like that,
and he was testing out
a new hill for us,
and there was, like, a snowbank
with a log covered in snow.
He shot down the hill
and he hit the log
and he broke his back.
Yeah, he had surgery
and he was in intensive care for months,
and then it never really did heal up.
So, he was
in and out of hospitals.
He went to the Mayo Clinic
and after several years,
it got to where he could do
less and less.
You know,
he went from being this guy
who was out hunting
and four-wheeling
and playing racquetball
three times a day
to barely being able to walk.
I always knew that there was something
a little bit wrong with him,
but no one ever told us
that he was dying or anything.
He said that he did not want to be,
you know, just gradually growing
more and more debilitated
until the last thing his kids remember
was him in a bed
with 20 tubes running
in and out of him.
He said, "I'm not going to put
you through this, the girls."
There was, like, this one pond
we used to go out to
and skip rocks in all the time.
And he...
went out there one day
and put a hose in the exhaust
and killed himself.
And then, um...
You know, I was eight
and I was...
I didn't even know
he was dying up to then.
So, for...
pretty much all of the time
that my dad was alive,
everyone was... That I remember,
everyone was lying to me
and told me...
I thought he was fine.
He was dying in front of me
the whole time I knew him,
so...
A parent who believes in you
wholeheartedly,
in everything you can do
and everything
that you're going to be,
and can see potential in you
when nobody else can
or when other people
discount you
and then have that person
just disappear
off the face of the Earth,
you know,
I mean, that affects you
for the rest of your life.
He didn't want them to know.
He said, "You know,
let them have a happy childhood."
He died right in, like,
the peak stage of a kid's mind,
when like, your dad's the coolest,
most right person in the world
when you're eight years old.
You know, like,
your dad could beat up anybody
and your dad's right about everything.
You know, just sort
of the whole world fell in.
I mean, it takes a lot
to make me cry.
I think I've cried maybe three times
since I was eight years old,
and I sat in my living room
and cried for a week.
Did you see him that morning?
I think I did.
But, you know, the funny thing,
I couldn't remember
the last thing he said to me.
I couldn't remember...
if it was, "Goodbye,"
or I don't remember if it was,
"Put your clothes on."
I was... I had a...
I was a little nudist as a kid.
I was constantly running
around the house stark naked,
so he would either say,
"Bye" or, "Put your clothes on,"
as he left the house.
I forgot which one it was.
I hope it was "Bye."
But who knows?
Yep.
With her husband passing,
AnnMaria now left
with the daunting task
of raising
three young girls alone,
decided to head west
to the sunshine state
of California in search
of a brighter future.
That was really hard
on Ronda too.
In fact, for a semester,
she was homeschooled,
because she just hated going
to school so much.
I went from, you know,
being in the same class of kids,
like, the same 20
or something kids from,
you know, first to fourth grade,
to moving to Los Angeles where,
you know,
I'm a little white girl
with a North Dakota accent
in a 99 percent Mexican school.
So how did you pick up
the pieces?
There wasn't any other choice,
you know?
I remember one of my friends
saying something to me
about how could you,
after your husband died,
you know, build up a business
and move to L.A.
and... and start all over,
and I said, "Well, really,
there's only two choices:".
Let the rest of your life suck
or not."
And I picked option B.
Did you get closer,
do you think?
Or was there distance
for a while?
- I know you're very close now.
- I think all of us
got closer.
When her father...
committed suicide,
she could no longer swim.
That was her connection
with her dad,
but her mother, AnnMaria,
took her and introduced her
to Kodokan Judo,
and that changed her whole life.
Her mother was the first American
world champion, male or female, in judo.
She's an amazing woman.
World champion, AnnMaria Burns.
I would go and teach judo
once a week or so.
I had a friend who had a club
out in Baldwin Park
and she would come along
every now and then,
and she said, "I wanna do judo."
I'm wanna quit swimming
and do judo."
And I said, "No, you don't."
You know, you made the Junior Olympics
in swimming."
"And besides, if you do judo,"
your mom is always the first person
to win the world championships
in this country.
Everyone is going to expect
too much of you.
"Do your own thing.
You know, stick with swimming."
And one day my friend, Hayward,
was listening to me
have this argument with her,
and he says,
"AnnMaria, nobody remembers you.
Let the kid do whatever she wants."
So I did.
And there you go.
So, what were your first impressions
when she switched to judo?
She... It was pretty early on,
maybe within the first year,
that it was noticeable she was better.
She was noticeably more talented
than the other kids.
A lot of girls
had a head start on me actually.
A lot of the girls
I would fight.
I... I started behind,
pretty much, and so my mom...
kind of instilled in me
from the very beginning
was like,
"You're starting behind,"
so every single day you have to train
more than they did
"and eventually you'll catch up."
So, your first judo bout
was the tournament?
It was a tournament.
It was funny.
I walked in there,
and I threw the girl right away and I won,
but my mom told me,
'cause there's so many kids
that you pin them
and all the commands
are in Japanese,
so the referee will say something,
and they'll just stand up
and walk away.
So she said,
"If you pin this girl,"
I don't care what they do,
what happens,
make them pull you off
of the kid.
"Don't let them up."
So, I threw the kid right away
and I already won,
but I was down in this pin
and I was, like, running around
in a circle in this pin,
I wouldn't let the girl up.
They had to, like,
you know, pretty much tap me
and pull me off of the girl,
and then I fought the same girl again
and the same thing happened.
I threw her right away,
I wouldn't get up.
I was just, like,
on her, on the ground.
I refused to get off the ground.
This poor girl
was already beaten
and I was, like,
still down there.
There's that thing
where you refuse to lose,
no matter who they are,
no matter how big they are,
no matter what they are,
you are not gonna let this person
beat you.
And it's that thing that I saw
in her pretty early on,
probably in the first year
or so.
When she was,
like, eighth, ninth grade,
up until she went off
for her first Olympics,
I would take her to practice...
seven... usually six
or seven times a week.
Just in those car rides
over to practice,
I didn't know she was just
building me up
and building me up
and just telling me.
Like, just giving me, like...
She has her sayings I would hear
over and over and over.
Like, "Jesus, Mom."
you know?
"Champions always do more, champions
always do more." Stuff like that.
I didn't want her
to just become an imitation of me,
'cause I see people do that
and then your child doesn't develop
their own style, you know?
- Sure.
- They just try and be like you.
So I taught her a couple of things.
There's a throw...
There's a picture
in the hallway of me
doing a throw
at the world championships
that I kind of did all the time.
So I taught her that throw.
When Ronda was about 13,
I started taking her to Hayastan
that Gokor and Gene ran,
and back before they had
the really nice place they have now.
The kind of rundown gym
up in the corner
of the strip mall.
She was a young kid,
and I was always
playing with her,
throwing her left, right,
and then the ground fighting,
and trying to make her
understand that how important
passing the legs
and arm bar and choke
and those kinds of things.
I've known and trained
with Gokor
since he was actually able
to take my belt off
and hogtie my hands
and feet together
and grab me by the belt
and put me in my mother's lap.
Like, he would literally has been
beating me up for that long.
When I took the belt
and tightened her up,
like the legs, arms,
neck together
and put her, like,
in one ball like this,
and then I pick her up like this
and hang her somewhere
and she started crying
and then the mom said,
"Gokor, what you doing,
what you doing?"
Then I pick her up and give her
to Mom and everything.
He can't hogtie me anymore, though.
I don't think so.
I wouldn't dare him to, though.
I'd get really embarrassed.
I started wrestling,
freestyle wrestling, in 1968
when I was five years old.
How long did you wrestle?
I wrestled approximately five years,
but in the mid-time,
three years later,
I start doing sambo
because I was wrestling
and then I'd look
and there's the sambo guys
that are training over there,
and I said "I can beat them."
Well, sambo is just
a regular Russian art.
It's a combination judo
and wrestling
and has specialized leg locks.
I did also the combat,
which is punch,
kicking, and with no uniform
and do the rest, other things.
So they give me a kurtka,
so they're called kurtka
in sambo.
So I put it on
and tied it up and go
and beat a lot of good guys
over there.
And then, one time,
the sambo instructor
asked me, "There's a tournament,
if you want to join."
So I go to the tournament.
I took first place,
and my first real fight,
I had a shooto fight
in Japan in 1984,
which is six-man contest
and I win the whole match
in the same day.
Four fights I did in one day,
and that's when
my real career started.
Not only is he a hell
of a martial artist,
he's a really good person.
Like I said, when I started
taking her there
when she was 13 or 14,
and I travel a lot, so sometimes
her older sister would take her,
and Maria would come straight
from St. Monica's Catholic High School
cheerleading practice.
So she's in her St. Monica's
High School cheerleader outfit
with her, you know,
14-year-old sister on the mat,
and I'm not so sure
how this is gonna go
with a bunch of...
you know, Armenian guys.
No one,
especially the girls in judo,
no one wanted to train at Hayastan
because they thought we were rough,
we were crazy.
She trained with animals.
We were part of those animals.
Men, guys, would not come train
with the Hayastan team,
because we had a "bad reputation"
of being too rough
and hurting our opponents,
which was bullshit.
But we had that rep.
Because we were always,
at a team tournament,
our team always took the first place.
Every tournament.
And so, I called Gokor.
You know, "I've heard a lot of stuff
about your gym."
Give me your word,
and that's good enough for me."
And he said,
"You send your daughter."
Anybody hurts your daughter,
anybody who's disrespectful
to her older sister,
"I will personally kill him."
She come to train judo,
to compete with my guys,
but she study,
she learned grappling from us.
That is the owner of this fine gym
and will show you around.
He's the Armenian Assassin.
He's the best teacher
in the country.
Bar none.
Gene, I know the day
I come to America, you know.
I come to America in 1980.
I meet Gene and this is it.
Since today, it's 2015.
Every time I open dojos
and Gene always come,
and a lot of people,
they're thinking this is Gene's school.
And they're asking me,
"This is a Gene LeBell school?"
Sometimes I say,
"Yeah, why not?"
You know, he's my friend.
He's my teacher.
He's my family.
He's like a father to me,
you know?
Gene is fabulous.
I heard about Gene
when I was a little kid.
Everybody in judo knows Gene.
Gene was a legend
and he's very modest about it.
It's nice to be a legend.
What's it pay?
The guy that taught me
was "Judo" Gene LeBell,
toughest guy in the world,
not according to him.
He trained Bruce Lee,
Chuck Norris, a lot of guys.
Anyone I've ever known
that knows anything about stunts
knows who he is.
It's funny, I knew him
before I knew who he was.
When I was just a little kid
at judo tournaments,
he would hand me a patch
and it said, "Break a leg.
It means good luck."
And it showed him
like pretzling some guy's leg up,
and I just thought that was funny.
He won the national
championship's Grand Open
back in the '50s.
The grand championships
are where they have everyone
who won every weight division
in judo in the nationals fight off.
So it's, like, all weights.
It's insane.
It's crazy to do, but Gene won.
So, Gene LeBell is like
a father to me.
A lot of the fights
that I've had in the beginning,
some he was in the corner for,
some he was in the audience.
I could hear him yelling for,
"Stick your thumb in his eyes!
Stick your elbow in his eye,"
you know?
You're going way out here.
You don't have to go out there.
Just there, you got it.
Don't worry, I'm okay.
Submission-wise, Gene LeBell
has every submission
that Brazilian jujitsu has
and thousands more.
You know,
you've probably heard it said
where he's forgotten
more than we'll ever learn.
He's truly, truly the essence
of that statement.
You got to do it again
and pull his head forward.
See how much easier
the foot goes in?
Key lock the leg.
Arm bar, arm bar here.
Choke.
Good.
When was the first time
you started to fight?
Well, I tried to fight with my mother
when I was three years old,
but she had such a good left hook.
She knocked me
into the nickel seats.
I got into the fighting
because my mother had an auditorium
with boxing and wrestling.
So I was around boxers
and wrestlers all my life.
And they were men
and I was a kid.
You know, he kind of encouraged
a lot of things
that I disapproved of.
You know, what if there was...
He would have her
fight these huge guys,
and I said,
"Gene, it's a bad idea.
You know, she's 125 pounds,
fighting some 180-pound guy."
And he's, "Oh, she's tough.
She can take him."
"Gene, that's not the point,
how tough she is."
If that guy happens to fall
on her knee,
"you know, she's gonna get hurt."
So, he and I would have a lot
of these discussions.
It doesn't matter if I threw her,
or if Gokor threw her,
or some other guy or girl threw her,
she would get pissed and cry.
She couldn't handle a loss.
She would fight
and all the guys are beating her up,
she would just... cry and fight.
Cry and fight, you know?
That was her attitude.
I think that's what made her.
I would yell, I'm like...
I would literally say like,
'cause her lip would come out,
and I'm like, "Suck your lip back
and get on the mat, Ronda,"
and then I would say
some stupid joke, and...
And she would, kind of like, smile,
and I'm like,
"Ah, I saw the smile.
You can't fool me now. Get on the mat
and start doing judo."
But you knew she had that fire,
that competitive fire.
She had it in her,
and they were, like,
that's already enough.
With the sport she's doing,
that's enough to boil.
That's gonna fuel her.
I remember her kind of being shy,
but when she was on the mat,
it was like a different story.
You could tell, she'd, like...
She would push you.
You know, she wanted to train.
That's what it was,
and she wanted to get better.
She goes to jujitsu tournament
and she fight
in the black belt division.
She fight one, two fights
and then the rest other girls
don't want to fight her.
And I tell her, I say,
"Why they don't wanna fight you?"
She said, "Oh, they tell me..."
They're telling me you're hitting them
hard in the floor."
I said, "Jujitsu have any rules
you cannot throw the person hard?"
"No." I said, "So?"
"Yeah, but they don't wanna fight,
and some of them cry."
Now you got beat up
a lot at school.
- I didn't get beat up.
- Not physically.
No, but you said
they used to call you names?
Oh, Miss Man.
- They called you Miss Man?
- Yeah. Well, that was...
- That was in high school.
- You were a man and gay.
Oh, you know,
people are mean in high school
and that was back
before martial arts was cool,
so, yeah.
I would wear jackets
every single day,
like, zip-up jackets,
and it would be 80 degrees out
and I would be sweating,
but I would be so scared
of anyone seeing my arms
that I would just hide them
in those jackets all the time.
Yeah, I was Biceps, Guns,
Guns McGee, Miss Man.
And how did you respond?
- By getting in a bunch of fights.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- And winning all.
Yeah, but that didn't really
help me out too much.
Didn't really help me
become more popular.
- Miss More Man.
- No, it got me...
It got me put into anger management,
which I thought
I was managing my anger fine.
I would have gotten
into a lot more fights, though,
if I didn't fear the wrath
of my mother more than anything.
Though, it's funny. A lot of times
I'd end up getting in fights,
and the other kid would end up,
you know... not so well,
but I would be in the office crying,
and everyone at school the next day
would be saying
how I got beat up in a fight
because they saw me in the office crying,
but especially 'cause my mother
was coming and I had the fear.
She said, "My favorite teacher
and the best teacher I've ever had"
and the one that taught me
all these arm bars,
was my mother, AnnMaria.
"Don't mess with her."
AnnMaria always said to her...
"You are better than me."
When your mom is a world champion,
and she says, "You're better than me,"
that's the biggest compliment.
Being a world champion in judo
is so difficult
and growing up
and looking at your mom,
she's a world champion
and she's got the fighter's...
that heart,
and her mom tells her,
"You are better than me."
She is better than her mom.
So following in her
mother's very talented shoes,
off Ronda went to the San Jose
State University Center
for the 2004 Olympic Judo Trials.
Ronda Rousey
of Santa Monica, California
with 40-year-old veteran
Grace Jividen.
And that's gonna be the end of the match!
Ronda Rousey has won a spot
on the United States Olympic Team.
My mom was, kind of, like,
more of my mentor through it,
she... making sure that, you know,
I was making the right choices
and training with the right people,
and that I didn't just be a jerk
because winning
does that to people.
So Ronda made the Olympic team
at a mere 17 years of age
and off she went to Athens.
She didn't medal.
In fact, her first match,
she threw the woman flat,
and they didn't call it.
In fact, I thought I just had imagined...
You know, I'm biased.
When somebody sent me the tape afterwards,
I was so mad.
I had to go out
and, like, run for eight miles.
I was so furious.
She took it upon herself to not...
To kind of mold me more of my mental...
Like, how I could deal with that much
amount of pressure at, like, a young age.
My mom's actually
a developmental psychologist.
That's what she got her PhD in,
so I didn't give her enough credit
from the beginning that she, kind of...
I always thought she was always trying
to shoot me down,
but she was trying to just keep me
from building up this ego,
which I think is funny.
People come up to me all the time
and they're like,
"I can't believe it,
you're so nice." I'm like,
"What did you expect me to do?
Like a lock up and punch you in the face?"
Like, I don't know.
So in 2008,
Ronda earned a second shot
to fulfill her and her father's
lifelong dream
of attaining gold
at the Beijing Olympics.
After a grueling tournament,
Ronda fought hard,
becoming the first America woman
to earn an Olympic medal in judo.
I missed him a lot
the last two Olympics,
'cause it was like his thing,
you know?
And at the last Olympics,
we got the...
The flag that was on his coffin
and I wanted to bring it up
on the podium
but they wouldn't let me.
But we got to, like...
My mom and them got to wave it around
in the stands a little bit
when I was fighting.
So... it would have been nice
to have him there
'cause it was, kind of, like,
I only got set out
to do the Olympics
because of him, I think.
Up until the day he died,
he was telling me
I could go to the Olympics.
So I got back from the Olympics,
and I threw the first pitch
at the Dodgers game
and the guy behind me
had, like, a little kid
and they let him, like,
hold my medal and take pictures
and he said he owned a bar
and I was, like,
"Oh, I wanna be a bartender."
And so, the guy gave me
a bartending job
with, like, no experience,
which is actually kind of funny.
But I ended up getting,
like, two more bartending jobs.
Like, one was on the beach
in Malibu at Gladstone's
and one was, like,
on Crenshaw and Adams
in the middle of Crenshaw.
Yeah, I pretty much spent, like,
six months
just drunk from free alcohol.
So at least I did it
economically by working.
She was really down though,
after she came back,
and she didn't know what she wanted to do
with her life
and I think 'cause her whole life
had been focused
on winning a gold medal,
and then she didn't.
And so you either have to wait
four years,
and who knows what happens
in four years,
and so she was trying
to figure it out.
When we first met Ronda,
she was working three jobs,
I remember.
A lot of hours,
a lot of dedication.
All I know, she's always...
comes and says,
"I'm sorry I missed your last class
because I didn't have no gas
and I didn't have no money
to put gas in my car and come."
I always feel bad for her.
You know why?
She's an Olympian medalist,
a world champion.
If she lives in another country,
they would give her
a lot of money for this.
Olympian medalist world champion
don't have no money
to put gas to come to training.
This is the one thing
in United States.
They put in a lot of money,
the one guy is throwing the ball
one place to another,
they give him millions
of dollars.
Another girl brings the American flag
all over the world to stay
in the champion
and have no money to put gas
in the cars.
I knew she was working
at Gladstone's,
but I never wanted to go see her.
Why?
I don't really think she deserves that.
I know
she could have done better.
It hurt me.
Honestly, it got me, I was like,
I've seen her such a long time.
You know, we grew up together
in a certain way.
Why is she living in her car?
I'm like, "Where do you live?"
"Well, I'm in Santa Monica
and then I was in Boston, Karo."
And it was kind of weird, man.
I didn't like to see
that because,
you know,
she was like a little sister.
Looking at her, you know,
she was overweight.
She was chunky,
and her mind wasn't right.
So what got you interested
in fighting again?
I promised myself
I would only take a year off.
So I kind of justified to myself
that whole time that, like,
oh, I wasn't, you know, I was just
getting everything out of my system.
I didn't really get to do
the high school thing.
I dropped out
of high school sophomore year.
I didn't go to college,
so I felt like I needed to get it all out.
She was drinking every day.
She was all wasted
and she didn't want
to work out anymore.
I would see, like,
a bunch of clothes,
I'm like,
"Ronda, are you living in your car?"
She was like, "Yeah, dude",
my fucking window doesn't even go down.
I'm getting...
- "It's hot and all that stuff."
- Her name is Fonda.
Fonda is Ronda's Honda.
I named her that so you could say that.
The change was she said,
"I wanna fight."
- MMA?
- MMA.
And I told her, "Didn't I tell you
you have a pretty face",
you don't wanna mess it up?"
She goes, "No, Manny.
No, I'll fight."
So I took her with me to this gym
which is called Main Event.
No one asks, "Who is this girl?"
They didn't care who she was.
Day by day,
she grew and she got better
and then they still didn't care
and then she said,
"I want to fight amateur."
Then I had to move
from Main Event
to GFC at Edmonds.
And I was asking around...
where I could go to do striking,
and I went to a couple places
and it didn't really fit well.
I'd gone to, like,
three different places already
and I was asking the guys
at the Hayastan
where they were doing their striking,
and Manny and Karo and Savat
were all, at the time,
were training at GFC.
And so, Manny invited me to come
with them one day, and so I did.
When Ronda came,
I didn't wanna train her.
You know, I was like,
"Judo is a great sport,
it's a beautiful art."
And maybe she should continue
on spreading the knowledge
which she's learned
and how she made it to the Olympic games
and raised the US flag,
and, you know, why fight,
and what is she gonna do
with fighting?
Is she gonna be able
to support herself?
Because this is a serious sport.
I don't want you to get
in there and train
and not be able
to make a living with it.
Yeah, Edmond would barely even
said two words to me, I think,
for the for the first few months
I was there.
- What made you change your mind?
- Her work ethics, you know.
I like it when people come
and they don't give up
and they want to get
that attention
and they workout hard
so they can really earn
that respect and, you know,
make sure that their coach
understands
that they really wanna do it,
so they put in the time
and effort
because it's not only about talent.
It's about work ethics.
She was there almost
every day on time
and she was training hard
as she can
and she was trying
to get improved,
and then we realized
that she was something.
I believe it the day I...
She start training with me.
I told her always.
I said she's gonna be champion.
Her ups and downs made her
who she is.
Tough times don't last.
Tough people do.
That's what she is.
So how did you feel about her
getting into mixed martial arts?
Well, I thought
it was a really bad idea...
for several reasons.
I said,
"You know, you're really smart."
You always have done
outstandingly well
in math and science.
Let the stupid people punch each other
in the face.
You know, go to medical school.
Get a PhD in oceanography.
Go do something
"that has a high probability
of being successful."
I was trying to get the world
to accept the men fighting
in a cage
and, you know, you could get
the mount and punch somebody
when they were down, you know.
We grew up here
in the United States
in a culture
where you don't hit a man
when he's down, you know?
Like the old John Wayne movies,
he'd hit somebody
and he'd go over
and stand him back up
and he'd hit him again, right?
We couldn't wrap our brains around
people being on top
of each other,
hitting a person
when they're down,
- let alone a woman.
- I didn't want her to do MMA
because I don't want
some people punching,
you know, especially girls,
to punch in a pretty face.
I said, "I'm gonna ask your mom."
If your mom allowed it,
then I will do it."
And I've known Gokor
many, many years,
and I said,
"Let me ask you this.
If you had a daughter,
would you let her do it?"
And he said, "I get your point,
you know",
I won't bring it up again."
But Ronda, of course,
had different ideas.
So Ronda,
with a mind of her own,
entered the male-dominated world
of MMA.
I think that
your coaches should love you
and care about you,
and I was in...
I kind of had that mentality
where I wanted to go and train
where the best people were.
Where when I switched
sports to MMA,
I was like, "You know,
I'm going to train"
where the people who actually love
and care about me are,
"and then I'll find a way
to make it work there."
And, um, so I've known Gokor
since I was a little tiny kid,
and he was the only person
I knew that was in MMA
and so I came up to him
and I was like,
"You know what, I trust you,
I wanna do this."
Anything that you recommend,
"I'm 100 percent committed
from now on."
And I don't want
to take only credit.
My students here
trained her a lot.
Karen, Karo and Manny.
So my school trained her.
I expected when I started
that I was gonna do really well.
I mean, I saw the level
of athlete those girls were,
and I came from the Olympics.
I knew that women's MMA
was just starting to develop
and it wasn't
at Olympic-sport level yet.
I think there was, like,
some interview I did somewhere,
like, the first time I walked
into Eddy's striking gym
and put a boxing glove on
for the first time.
And I just... they said,
"So, what are you doing
MMA for?"
I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna win
the world championships."
I'm pretty proud
and make it look easy too."
I said something really cocky.
I remember that got onto YouTube
or something.
Just people were really, really mean
about it, you know?
In judo, I was used
to the crowds always booing me
and the press always being
very positive
and the feedback
was being very positive,
and in MMA,
everybody cheers for me, but...
the press and the feedback
I get is not always so positive.
Why? What kind of stuff
were they saying?
Well, people were saying
that I was delusional
and that was stupid
what I was saying.
- They couldn't wait to see...
- Early days?
Yeah, they couldn't wait
to see me get my ass kicked
and all that stuff.
The first time that Ronda Rousey
ever walked up to me
and said, "Hi,"
I had no idea who she was.
She said, "I'm Ronda Rousey.
I fight in mixed martial arts"
and I'm gonna be
in the UFC someday."
I said, "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you."
After Ronda's second
amateur fight,
I was invited along
to join the team
to help her with her striking
for a few months.
Actually, I think you were there
probably the first week
she was in MMA.
What I'd do if I were you
is buy a couple of these bandages here.
You don't need to use
so much bandage.
No, that's disposable
and it costs money
and I can't even pay
to fix the windows on my Honda.
I can't pay for them.
If I buy them,
would you use them?
Yes, of course I will.
I'm a woman.
Anything free, I'll take it.
While he's teaching you boxing,
how to boxer,
and the boxing part side,
your legs
are a little different.
You know, when you're mixed
martial artist, we're gonna fix...
We're gonna work on the legs.
Just don't worry
about the legs right now.
Go exactly what he say
and you're at the most...
Your hands
is the most important.
Then we'll work on the legs,
how the legs gonna be.
Okay?
Give me a slow jab.
Again.
Maybe put your legs out, please.
Every once in a while,
you'll find a jock,
an athlete that works harder
than anybody else.
She'll work maybe two,
three times a day,
like you're the first real
boxing coach she ever had
and she learned a lot from you.
If she get the...
Her striking get there,
I don't think so anybody
can stop her.
Her grappling today,
I don't think
so any jujitsu girls
or any other girls in the world
can stop her.
And she's considerate of people.
She had a pro wrestler
that she liked.
His name was Rowdy.
She says, "What do I do?
I want to use the name Rowdy."
I says, "I'll talk to my buddy,
Rowdy Roddy Piper."
So I talked to him
and he's laughing.
He said, "She can use
any name she wants."
You must be pretty proud of her
using that one now, huh?
I'm proud of her.
Roddy Piper's proud of her.
Twenty-three years old.
Ronda Rowdy Rousey, as we said.
The team headed to Las Vegas
for her second amateur fight
with a brand-new name,
Rowdy Ronda Rousey was born.
She's tough...
but look at this.
Rousey scrambles to mount,
you see the punches
come immediately.
Slips out to the arm bar.
Beautiful transition.
Autumn Richardson holding
onto her arm for dear life.
At this point,
her opponents seemed secondary.
Her vision was much bigger,
the UFC.
How long do you think
it's gonna be until you say,
"You know what,
I'm ready to go pro."
Till I go pro?
Hopefully as soon as possible.
It doesn't matter
how good striker she is
or whatever she is on that part.
She's always going to use
her judo,
and if her judo
is not good enough,
she's gonna lose it.
She's like a heart attack
She's like a heart attack
How's the girl's striking?
The other girl? She's very good.
The other girl is outstanding.
She's probably the second-best person
in the ring.
I'm not prejudiced.
It's a real challenge
getting fights for her
because people,
they find out about her
and they generally don't want her.
Do you think the girl's
underestimated her?
I think when somebody's
six and 0,
they start to overestimate
themselves.
She's so fine forgot...
With two wins now
under her belt,
the Rousey name was spreading
throughout the MMA world.
Fights were getting harder to get.
It was time to step up in class,
Las Vegas, The Venue.
Ronda would take on
an unbeaten Taylor Stratford
with a perfect record,
six and 0.
This would be her last
amateur fight.
Rousey with an early bound,
and she does not wanna be
in that position.
There's the arm bar
and there it is!
She's like a heart attack
She's like a heart attack
Honestly, how long
is it gonna be until you go pro?
Actually, my first pro fight
is February 26, next month.
Oh, hold it, hold it.
Right there. Now, twist it.
Twist it and straight out.
Straight out.
If I rotate,
then you rotate with me.
Once you hurt her...
Now, if you make the mistake
and put your head on this side,
- you can cut up your eye.
- Okay.
Okay, now, put your head down.
Real slow.
When I was doing
grappling in amateur in judo
I had a chance of going out
on a date,
I didn't do it.
I went to the gym.
And I spent eight hours
a day in the gym
and I did all the different
martial arts,
boxing, wrestling, judo,
kenpo, Shudokan,
taekwondo, all of 'em.
You take the best features
of all of 'em
and see what works for you
and that's what
Rowdy Ronda does.
- I don't wanna hurt you.
- And I wanna live.
She's got a very crazy attitude.
One from here.
Then throw.
And here.
And whatever she does,
she wants to be the best.
You run, she wants to beat you.
Make sure you do that.
You punch,
she wants to punch harder.
She's gonna be the next champion
of the world.
Otherwise I'll burn
your house down.
That's okay.
I don't have a house. I'm broke.
I'm a starving athlete.
I don't got no house.
When I first met her,
she was a little disheveled
and her hair was messy,
and her cheeks were rosy
from the training
and she's a little bit heavier,
but I saw this beautiful face
and these dimples
and this, you know,
beautiful cheekbones
and so I started
trying to figure out
what I wanted to do.
I set up a photoshoot.
I was trying to really
figure out a way
to cross her over
to the mainstream,
and not sexualize her,
but show the dichotomy
of this person that can crush
and then this other beautiful woman.
That's why I think people
are so fascinated with her.
You know how I feel.
It's just utter bullshit.
I sit here and smile and yeah,
then I'd poke in his ear.
I'm like, you better tell them
this, this, and this,
and I'm going
to sit here and look nice.
While he goes and just yells
- everything I told him to say.
- That's awesome.
Her opponent's four pounds up.
Ronda's been suffering
like a fucking pro.
So according to my scale
and Darin's scale, I'm fine.
So...
But I really
shouldn't have to worry
about it now
since she's overweight.
So, who cares? It's just so funny.
Like, when I did judo,
if you were over
by, like, 0.05 of a kilogram,
you were sent home,
like, and you were fined
thousands of dollars
for, like, going to, you know,
Belgium or wherever on...
Like, I missed weight once
and they were gonna fine me
thousands of dollars.
I make my fighters lose weight.
I make 'em lose weight
because they represent me.
She's representing you.
- Makes you look bad.
- There's a sauna here.
Is it like
it's physically impossible
for her to sit in the sauna
for an hour? That's a lie.
It's inexcusable, you know.
She can't lose another
two pounds?
Why didn't you tell us?
Why not yesterday?
Why did you not tell us
yesterday?
Every minute they go dehydrated
is a disadvantage for us.
I don't know. I really
don't know what we're gonna do.
You guys did sign
contracts today
to fight in earnest.
That means you're to fight,
not run away from your opponent.
Does anybody have
their paperwork ready for me?
- Towel? She needs a towel?
- Are you ready?
Ronda's up first.
Ronda cleverly pretended
that she had weight issues.
What she really was doing
was hiding nine stitches
in her foot from a dog bite.
All right. Stand still. 146.2.
No sense in being paranoid.
The date was set
for Ronda's professional debut.
It would be March 27
at the Braemar Country Club
in Tarzana, California.
Her opponent, Ediane Gomes.
Four pounds overweight
and a six and one record.
Gomes is... She was a tough girl.
Ronda came out there and just
dominated every second.
She was completely offensive
in everything she did
and made Gomes
completely defensive
in everything
that was occurring.
No offense. She threw one punch
that missed
and from that point,
ends up getting arm barred
about 25 seconds
into the first round.
And that was the end
of the fight.
Ronda, you're awesome!
Love you.
Wow! Now, that's tough.
The best in the world.
Nobody can touch her.
Nobody will.
I'm going on this record.
Nobody in the world
can touch Ronda.
Cyborg, we're coming after you.
You can't do it.
She'll arm bar you
in ten seconds.
If she doesn't lay some
whoop-ass on this gal,
I'm gonna do like I did
when she was a baby.
I'm gonna turn her over
on my knee and paddle her butt.
I'll tell her that before the fight
and I know
that she'll annihilate,
mutilate, assassinate
her opponent.
Two of the most
accomplished fighters
we've ever seen here
at the Hard Knocks
Fighting Championship.
These may be some of the best bouts
we may ever see.
Charmaine Tweet was the second
professional opponent
to fall victim
to Ronda's superior judo
and grappling skills.
Instead gets
herself to the mount
and now looks for an arm bar.
And she's got it!
Five fights.
Five straight wins,
all by her mother's signature
arm bar.
The UFC now firmly
in Ronda's sights.
Goodness gracious!
Ronda finally invited
Pete and I over
to her beautiful home.
In essence,
we were just saying goodbye
to her palace in Venice.
Yeah.
Here he is.
I was wondering
where you was at.
Do you want a tour of my house?
This is my dining room
that we skipped for a reason.
Someone kicked me, okay.
People eat here apparently.
I don't know
how we haven't come up
with a new strain
of cholera or something.
I wrote a note
to... describe the personality
of our kitchen.
Right there.
"I don't know what our garbage
disposal must think of us."
They're tearing this house down,
in, like...
Right after we move out.
So as soon as we found out,
we were just, like...
"Well, who gives a shit,
they're tearing down the house."
So we just kinda want it,
let it all go to hell.
But it was already, kind of,
hellish when I moved in.
You know,
I didn't make it like this.
You know, when you guys
were coming up today,
you called me right
when you pulled up,
and you're like,
"We think we're at the wrong address.
There's no way
you could possibly live here."
All my underwear looks like...
Mochi, when I first got my dog,
she was obsessed with chewing up
my dirty underwear
and, like, I would wake up
next to her in the morning,
and be like, "Oh, my God,"
she would, like,
throw up underwear, like,
she would swallow it whole.
Like, she was obsessed with it
and she'd gnaw on it
and that underwear
that I just kicked out
of the way just now
is one of the many, many,
many pairs
I call workout underwear now,
that make it look like
I was just systematically raised
by a group of wolverines
over time,
but that's not really
what happened.
And this stuff's awesome.
We have aloe all over the place.
It's really good for any
kind of, like,
- skin irritation that you have.
- Awesome!
Yeah. Any time like after, like,
sparring or grappling
or whatever
or if I have rub burn
and if anyone scratched me
with Velcro, I use it.
Just break it off and rub it in.
I'm, like, moving
the big stuff today,
and I... Yeah,
I'm really excited.
We're moving to on the beach
in Venice.
I just have too much stuff
and not enough room.
This is a small room.
So usually we just
have stuff everywhere,
and I, like, walk into the room
in this corner
and I'll just hop up on bed
and this is where I sleep,
you know.
It's like I sleep
in my storage room.
Oh, yeah. Those are
all my boarding passes
from different places I went
while doing judo.
I put em' here
'cause I traveled a lot
not 'cause I was loaded.
This is my mama right
after she won
the world championships
in Vienna, Austria,
and she said she did cartwheels
across the whole stadium.
Awesome.
This is my...
my dad with my sister...
and I. I'm the fat...
I'm the little fatty.
Fat bald one.
That's Jennifer,
and that's a big box of naked.
That's why it's under
all this stuff.
I'm so...
now I know what my ass
looks like in a picture.
Awesome! I never had people
take pictures
of like my bare ass
or like my titties.
You're not gonna find that
on the internet
and I can never let any, like,
you know, boyfriend,
"Oh baby, I swear, I swear,
I swear I'll never show anybody."
I was always like,
"Fuck you and fuck that.
Not happening."
So that's the first time
I really got to see my ass.
You know, like, not in,
you know,
like in the Mandalay Bay,
like crazy mirror
in the bathroom. You're like...
look at all the angles,
you know what I mean? Like...
The need to impress other people
with stuff was never, like,
a thing in our family ever.
Like no one even talked
about it.
So that's what gives me
a hard time a lot of time,
where I'll go spend, like,
a bunch of money
on some boot, you know,
and then I'll throw it in a box
with a... I got to show you,
like, this one box.
This one box that is... probably
needs insurance.
And it is a box of boots.
This is from...
It was like my first big
photoshoot thing
and it was the Vogue Shape issue
before the 2008 Olympics.
I'm a natural blond
but, like, the sun dyes it,
you know.
Like, if you wear it up
all the time
or like all this
different stuff.
Like different parts
see the sunlight,
so it brightens unevenly.
I get it highlighted
to even it out,
not to be blonder
than I really am, okay?
This is real. Real.
I'm at Ronda Rousey's old house,
and you know, to...
I'm here shooting a documentary
about Ronda
and she put me and Tyler
to work moving her.
As you can see
there was furniture here
and then now it's empty.
All you see is the dog
and all the furniture here
was moved by me
and I would say,
I couldn't shoot any documentary
unless I was put to work.
- That was the condition.
- That was the condition,
- but she thanked me.
- Yeah, me too.
That's what you got to do.
He's a good sport.
Yeah.
So we're showing the transfer of success
from these humble beginnings
to the new house,
which you'll see us at...
- shortly.
- Yep.
And they surely earned
the right to show you.
I used to have this
little Christmas tree ornament
that hung from the ceiling
and I boxed with it
and we had the...
One of our couch people,
silent Jessie,
just decided to get
his six-foot,
eighty-pound ass
in a rage one day
and just hit it and hit it
on something else and broke it.
He broke my boxing ornament.
So we're taking the hooks,
we're taking the plant.
This house
is motherfucking safe.
'Cause look at me
and look at that dog
and look at that gate.
I haven't achieved anything.
Remember I was telling you?
You have control
and this one goes under,
here, here, and squeeze it.
Up right over left elbow.
Right over left elbow.
Like this.
- Oh, so...
- Watch.
Let's begin.
Hugs for Gary.
Against Julie Ketzie
after winning
the first four fights
of her career.
And as we mentioned,
Ronda Rousey,
two submission wins.
My first Strikeforce fight.
I did like the coolest arm bar
that ever happened,
that I never practiced.
I jumped in the air
and did this crazy thing,
and then the girl
was like putting her arm
out to catch herself.
And, like, she was really cool
to me beforehand,
and I could feel her
arm popping out.
And I knew the second that
her hand touched the ground
that the weight
of everything stopping
would just totally blow out
her elbow
and she was yelling,
"Tap, tap, tap, tap!"
So then I stopped
and she got up and was like,
"I didn't tap, I didn't tap.
I didn't tap."
- Oh, no!
- And then after that,
I was like, I'm making
an example
out of everyone forever,
because I was like,
you ruined my Strikeforce debut
and the coolest move ever,
so everyone else
is gonna get it.
If I feel sorry for you
in the ring...
- No, I'm not saying that.
- I'm gonna end up
being the loser.
Don't fight with me.
Don't argue with me.
I have been taught
by my teachers,
who were all champions,
and the reason
they were champions,
if they had a guy
on the ropes...
they'd finish him off.
- Sure.
- Not say, "Okay, come on out,"
here's my chin."
As Ronda is great with arm bars
and you leave an arm over there,
she's gonna catch it.
And Ronda will punish you.
When I'm coaching somebody
and I have to go to the bathroom
or something,
I can't wait
'til the second round.
So I tell my niece,
Rowdy Ronda Rousey...
"See this watch?"
It doesn't go
to the second round.
"It's the first round."
So in nine fights,
three amateur...
six pros,
none of them...
have gone to the second round.
Ronda Rousey wants
an even more clean-cut victory
here tonight against Julia Budd.
By this time,
Ronda not only wanted to win...
she really wanted
to make a statement
in which way she did it.
Referee Kim Winslow,
and immediately,
Ronda Rousey closes the distance
on Julia Budd.
This is the round of Ronda Rousey.
- And going for it.
- And already going
for the arm bar!
Belly down arm bar here!
It would take her
seventh opponent,
Julia Budd, to underline.
Rousey was ready for the big-time.
A record four win,
four arm bars,
four first-round finishes!
There's "Judo" Gene LeBell,
one of the greatest grapplers
in American history,
and he had his stopwatch out.
My grandfather was one
of the toughest league players.
He always tell everybody,
he said, "Be nice to hurt
your opponent."
If you... They don't tap first time,
"the second,
you don't give no chance."
Now he's got it. Look at it!
My God, that was quick!
The crowd is going wild,
ladies and gentlemen.
They have to know you like that.
Have you ever, ever really
hurt someone and...
- felt bad about it?
- If I hurt somebody...
there's a reason behind it.
No, I can't honestly say
that I've felt bad
about hurting somebody.
I might have felt bad years ago,
but I got Alzheimer's
and dementia
and I can't remember feeling sorry
for somebody that I hurt.
It's sort of a sexual release
when I do something to somebody.
Do you have the same feeling?
- No, Gene.
- Oh.
So this Miesha Tate champion,
she was, I don't know,
the Strikeforce or...
I don't know which one it was.
She was a champ.
And she wanted Ronda
to come down to 135.
Ronda's a world champion judoka.
Let me just mention
she's a world champion judoka,
which means a judo practitioner.
And this chick wants her to come...
Oh, which I understand
her point of view, Miesha Tate.
This is MMA, this isn't judo.
Come down to 135
and I'll take
the fucking challenge.
She takes the challenge.
She accepts it.
Okay, 135, I'll come down
and I'll fight you.
Once Ronda says
I'll take the fight at 135,
this chick says,
"Well, no, no, no,"
you're not worthy to fight me yet.
I'm the champ.
What kind of bullshit is that?
She wished for it.
You be careful what you wish for, 'cause
it just might come true, and it did.
She got her fuckin' arm broken...
humiliated on fuckin' TV,
and Ronda was the champion.
Ronda said it politely
that she's greatly motivated by spite.
You know, when you saw her
and Miesha Tate, that was not fake.
Ronda genuinely didn't like her.
- And...
- Why?
Well, because Miesha said some things
about her that she thought
- were uncalled for and I think...
- Said she didn't deserve a shot.
Yeah. That kind of stuff.
Like, who do you think you are?
I was in the Olympics at 16
and you were putting
on a singlet to go fight, you know,
wrestle boys in high school.
When she was getting
ready to fight Miesha Tate,
this is a true story.
When I tweeted, I said,
"You know,".
Ronda is at a different level.
She's a different animal.
I'm not saying it
because she's my friend,
"it's the truth."
She goes,
"I can't see that, Manny."
You never rode me,
"you never respond
or anything like that."
I'm like, "No disrespect to you.
I will support you."
I think you're a great fighter.
You've got the heart of a lion.
But I've known her
for so many years.
When I was doing judo with her,
I was kicking her ass.
She was crying.
I threw her, she was crying
and she was coming back at me.
I grappled with her.
I choked her out.
I'd do arm bar triangle,
she cries
and she comes back at me.
She's a bitch on the mat.
She'll hurt you.
"She doesn't care."
But that's what make her the best.
As Ronda exploded
into the world stage
of women's MMA,
tensions mounted.
At the weigh-in against Miesha Tate,
a headbutt would clearly show
to all that watched
that Ronda certainly beats
to the rhythm of her own drum.
Her father had spoken her
into existence,
and she certainly started
to fill them shoes.
Her father, her late dad,
always knew that she was destined
for something special.
You ready? Let's fight!
Referee Mark Matheny
calls for the bell.
We are underway,
and immediately
Miesha Tate comes out swinging.
Miesha Tate
with the first strike,
and the takedown by Rousey.
Backs up the challenger.
There's that judo hip toss
by Rousey.
Lookin' for the arm again,
here she goes.
And again now transitioning
to the arm.
Less than a minute remaining
in the first round.
If he doesn't tap in the first,
second you have to break him.
Tate hanging on,
desperately trying to survive.
Ow, she's gonna break it.
It's over!
Rowdy Ronda Rousey.
Five professional fights!
Five first-round arm bar submissions!
Ronda Rousey is the new Strikeforce
women's bantam weight champion!
I know that you wanted
to dedicate this
to your father. Congratulations
on an amazing victory.
She dedi... I get choked up.
She dedicates her wins
to her father
and that can make me really cry.
It's respect.
I just want to say thank you
to all my coaches,
my teammates, my family,
and most of all, to my dad,
wherever you are.
I hope that you see this.
We all miss you. We love you
and this is for you.
I hope you're proud of me.
This gal that's unbelievable
as a person.
A lot of people are champions
in different sports,
but this lady
has a heart of gold.
How did you find out
what happened with your dad?
You know, it's funny,
most of the conversations
that my mom
and I have actually had
have been in the car,
in the van, driving me to judo.
And I remember when
she actually told me the whole story
about how his back
was actually giving out
and how he made his decision.
She told me in the car,
driving on the way to judo.
And how did you respond?
You know, I... I didn't...
At that point, he died years ago,
by the time she told me,
like, kind of...
And all the details of it.
So I guess...
at the time, it's...
What's the word?
I just kind of didn't really react
and I wanted to go fight instead.
And that was my reaction
and I was...
Would go to judo that night
and I felt better afterward.
So I don't remember
saying anything or, you know,
having a huge reaction. Just...
I trained really hard that night
and I didn't think about it
the next day.
And how about now?
Do you ever think about him
when you train,
before fights or...
I think I think about him
the most,
like, after I accomplish
something big
because, um, I just...
I think that he would be, like,
the most excited person
about it.
Ronda was now set
to defend her Strikeforce title
against Sara Kaufman.
My name's Diana Prazak.
Lucia Rijker is my trainer,
and as of the last year,
we've been sparring with Ronda.
First we're preparing her,
helping her striking
for her Sarah Kaufman fight.
Immense hair
preparation before you spar.
No, just a French braid.
- A French braid.
- It's Valentine's Day,
so I wanted it to be pretty.
She's good.
She's just naturally gifted.
She has great instincts.
She has a good trainer.
She follows direction very well.
She works out like a true pro.
I love it.
I have so much fun sparring her.
You know, it's always a...
It's a pleasure.
Everybody chokes
When they see someone
Cut down in their prime
It may not show
When you look at me
But I know I'm in mine
I'm potent, baby, I'm potent
Dangerous to the naked eye
So how has
Ronda's striking improved?
Oh, well, her combinations,
her speed,
and her confidence in her arms,
her confidence
in striking ability.
She's known obviously
for the arm bar.
That's her key move,
and she's known for doing
that all the time.
She can hold it when it comes
to striking now as well.
Yeah, I give her all the credit
in the world.
She has an animal instinct
that helps her
to have a laser focus.
She pushes her will on to her...
Most of her opponents,
which is kinda the animal kingdom,
it's what an animal does.
And she backs it up
by hard training
and natural talent
and good people around her.
Angle up!
Ronda's victory
over Sarah Kaufman
at the Valley View Casino
in California
would be her last fight
before entering the UFC.
And it's over!
Rowdy Ronda Rousey
continues to amaze me!
Ronda was like this tornado
that came in there
and just destroyed people.
And so she made you take notice.
Dana White said there will never be
a woman in the UFC.
When are we gonna
see women in the UFC, man?
- Never!
- Anytime soon?
- Never?
- Never.
And Ronda changed that.
Made him eat his words!
What about the future of women
in your sport?
Ronda. Ronda Rousey.
She just changed
the entire face of women's MMA.
Ronda destroyed Miesha's arm
in that Strikeforce fight,
and it made Dana take notice
and then he met Ronda.
He saw something in her
and that...
The same thing that most people
see in her: She's different.
And she's just a different animal.
She came up to me
at an event once,
and she said,
"Can I talk to you?"
and I said, "Yeah,
so we went back"
into my room in the arena.
And then I had known a lot more
about women's MMA,
and we talked
for about 45 minutes.
And 15 minutes
into the conversation,
in my head I was going,
"Holy shit."
"I think I'm gonna do this,
and I actually think that this
is the woman to do it with."
I'm gonna make it
official right now.
The first-ever UFC women's
champion,
Ronda Rousey.
And I'm presenting her
with her belt.
People lost their minds...
when I made her
and Liz Carmouche
the main event.
"This is disgusting."
"What the fuck kind of bullshit is this?"
"This is a joke."
These are fans
and, um, some media too.
February 23 at the Honda Center
in Anaheim, California,
she'll be fighting
Liz Carmouche,
and she is the main event.
The amount of pressure
is what impressed me so much
about the way she handled
that entire situation.
Because, you know,
she had been handed a belt, really,
and you know, to come in
and be in the position
where you've never even fought
for a promotion,
never fought
for an organization,
and now you're the champion
of it,
and you are the main event
for that organization.
The amount of pressure,
most people will never understand
what that's like.
Nobody in the history
of this company
will have more new media
following them
than Ronda Rousey will.
Ronda Rousey has broken
the gender barrier in the UFC.
Less than two years
after UFC President
Dana White said women would
never compete in the UFC,
Rousey will reportedly become
the first female fighter
to join the organization.
When you're fighting
in mixed martial arts...
there are actually things
you're not allowed to do.
Sometimes, if you're watching it
you feel like both opponents
can really much try anything,
but that's not the case.
No, no. You can't, like...
There's no, like, eye gouging.
You can't, like,
tickle the other person.
There's no...
You can't scratch 'em.
- You can't pull their hair.
- Wait a minute.
You can't tickle the other person?
Thank God! I'm actually
deathly ticklish, but...
And you can't open-hand
slap them,
which I thought would be awesome
to just walk out there
and slap a girl
but apparently the only reason
why you can't is
because you might poke 'em
in the eye.
And Carmouche,
Have you ever fought her before?
No, I haven't,
but she's like a veteran marine.
I know.
I was reading about that.
She's no slouch.
This chick is like, you know,
she's coming to throw down.
Ladies and gentlemen,
this is the main event
of the evening!
When Liz Carmouche
and Ronda Rousey
walked out into that arena,
that place went fucking nuts.
The energy in the crowd was as big
as any big fight you've ever been to.
The champion and the challenger.
This would be a defining
moment in women's sport.
Rousey would face Liz Carmouche
as the first woman ever
to enter the octagon in the UFC.
Ronda, you know, went out there,
made a couple mistakes.
Liz got into a... you know,
a good position, got her back.
Carmouche
is on her back though, Mike.
Carmouche has it over on her.
Carmouche has...
Ronda's face is getting
twisted sideways.
Carmouche's trying to shock
the world.
Liz actually had her
in a very painful,
if you want to say it,
face crank
that started to actually
put a little bit of, you know,
concern on Ronda.
You could see her start
to have, you know,
that little bit
where we start to panic.
And you could see her
collect herself
and just basically go,
"I'm gonna be fine."
Good shot here, Mike!
Rousey trying to shake
and she does!
Oh, now this is bad.
This is the arm bar position.
Rousey more pressure.
She's locking it.
Ronda proved the naysayers wrong
and Dana White right.
She had now paved the way
for women in the UFC.
It's for the champion,
Ronda Rousey.
She goes up and faces the best
in the world.
They know exactly
what she's gonna do
and how she's gonna beat 'em,
but they can't stop her.
She's unbelievable
and she gets better
every time she fights.
I'm a bit more of a believer
in women's MMA now.
If a guy is good,
but he doesn't have any heart...
I don't wanna waste my time.
Ronda has heart.
She's got brains.
She's got beauty
and she's got it all.
She's got the whole package.
I think Ronda is just smarter
than every single person
out there
and she will never give up.
I remember this one time
I was at this great restaurant
in Chicago
and two Notre Dame basketball players
came up to me
and they were huge,
and they were like,
"Hey, he's arguing with me.
He thinks he could kick
Ronda Rousey's ass."
And I told him "Ronda Rousey
would drop you on your head"
in two seconds
before you even knew what happened."
"No way." And it just became
this thing where, you know,
women rallied behind her.
Men were, like, totally in love with her
or just blown away
by how badass she was.
Ronda is like a man
with a vagina.
She looks at the world
like a man.
She looks at fighting
like a man.
She fights men.
She trains with men.
She's not this...
She's a girlie-girl
when she wants to dress up
and stuff like that,
but she doesn't go through
her athletic life
like a lot of girls do.
She goes through it
like a man does.
What are you more afraid of,
losing a fight or getting hurt?
Oh, I'm way more afraid
of losing a fight.
I'd rather get hurt badly and win,
than lose unscathed.
It's natural.
Nerves are natural.
Even being afraid is natural.
You can be afraid.
If you're afraid like a bitch,
well, excuse my French,
you're in the wrong business.
You can have nerves.
You can have those butterflies,
but I've always said,
get them to fly in a formation,
control them as much as you can.
Make friends with the loss.
I make friends with it...
to calm me down,
get that knot to release
in my stomach,
but I don't wanna lose.
I'm not gonna get there to lose.
That just relaxes your nerves
until you get in the cage.
It's a preparation,
it's like, I had to beat my own
fundamental darkness first
before I enter the ring
which is my doubt.
So I'd start with that,
the moment you sign a contract.
I'd start working
with my inner destructive self.
And the moment I had overcome her,
I could face my opponent.
As a normal human being,
we all have that bit of fear in us
that's very motivating.
And if you don't,
you're probably a sociopath of some sort.
For some athletes, that fear,
especially that fear of failing,
you know, especially
in an individual combative sport
where you're standing out
in that cage all by yourself.
There isn't anybody else
you're gonna point to and blame
and say, "Well, he dropped the ball,"
or "He missed the catch."
It's just you.
You have to learn to deal with that
and embrace that fear,
use it to motivate you
to do the things you need to do
to make sure you don't lose.
Her brand exploding.
Along with the good press
also came the haters.
But anyone in the entertainment
business knows,
write whatever you wish,
just make sure you spell my name right.
Hollywood jumped
onto the Rousey bandwagon
and her movie career added
to her now outrageous schedule.
Dana White and the UFC
chose the perfect opponent
to feed the drama.
So a rematch was made
with her arch rival,
Miesha Tate.
When she was out shooting
Expendables,
what happened was she was there
shooting for two months.
She was running a bit, you know,
going to the gym,
hitting the bag,
but she didn't work
the way she was supposed to.
And that two months
of every day shooting,
keeping her weight low,
Ronda got sick.
And when she came back,
she had Fast and the Furious
then flew back here.
We had 45 days to prepare her
for the Miesha Tate second fight.
Miesha paid greatly for the insults
she allegedly made toward Ronda's family.
Ronda's mother had told me
her daughter
was greatly motivated by spite.
And Ronda Rousey remains the UFC
women's bantamweight champion.
It was for this reason.
Ronda refused to shake
Miesha's hands.
She went to shake Ronda's hand
and Ronda walked away from her.
Well, first of all, I need...
I need to commend
and congratulate Miesha.
She is an amazing fighter.
She really is.
It's just, once you insult my family,
I can't shake your hand,
but I really respect her and I...
I think she did an amazing job tonight.
I think that a lot of the world
likes to see Ronda
as like this like cocky,
which really... she's not cocky,
she's confident.
Somewhat angry.
Somewhat just like,
"I'm gonna go out there and beat
the shit out of you" mentality.
But to me, Ronda's one of the greatest
human beings I've ever met.
She has a heart of gold.
Like, she will be there
for anybody.
She was the same in 2010
when we met her.
She had those same qualities
of that bone to pick,
that outspokenness.
She never changed
since I've known her.
That's what makes her so special.
A lot of people say
she has a bitchy attitude
and this and that.
I overhear all this stuff,
but I know her for too long,
you know.
I know what's in here.
In here,
there's a little, pure, white girl
who has a big heart.
If she loves someone,
she will do almost everything
for them.
I lift the leg up and she's still
in my bounds, okay?
So I want you to think about
putting all the weight on one leg.
Try again. Pushing on her head.
So, jab, swoop,
set to the 45-degree angle.
I'm looking at the 45.
We're here.
So Ronda and her friend
came up with...
She came up with the idea
and a percent of all this
goes to breast cancer research.
She actually donated, like the fee
they would give her
to breast cancer research.
She does a lot of stuff
she doesn't get credit for.
All right.
She does a lot of stuff that nobody sees.
You know...
she is not one of those people
that kind of is there for the photo op.
She supported a middle school
soccer team,
on buying their uniforms.
We have an educational
video game company.
She pays for several schools
that can't pay it.
She's constantly, every fight,
she, you know,
auctions off her stuff
and gives all the money
to charity, and...
I always thought
that eating disorders
were something
that was really overlooked
and something that's becoming
an increasingly big problem.
It's something that I suffered with
when I was younger and, you know,
being in a weight-division sport
and, you know, a teenage girl,
and people asking you
what your weight is all the time
is not really, you know,
a way to develop a great self-esteem,
and...
and I thought that I was alone in it.
I thought that there was something
that was just wrong with me
and I was suffering by myself,
and I realized it was actually
very, very common.
And it just breaks my heart
when I see,
like, a little 11-, 12-year-old girls
come up to me
and tell me they think they look fat
or something like that.
And I think
that's just terrible, and so,
we came up with the logo
"Don't Throw Up, Throw Down,"
- and...
- Oh, wow.
Yeah, cute, huh?
Now back to the hurt business.
Rousey, McMann.
Here we go!
But you don't tell the wrestler...
Against Sara McMann,
Ronda demonstrated
her versatility,
and her first victory came
without the use of the arm bar.
Fastest knockout
in women's bantamweight history.
It is almost impossible to stop.
- When you get hit...
- I think the only way
that she can get beat
is if she took things too lightly.
Like her old coach told her,
Jim Pagos one time
before the US Open,
he'd say, you know,
"Nobody's coming out to this tournament"
and they're gonna lay down for you
'cause you're Ronda Rousey,
"and you have to train,
you have to earn it."
And so, I'll go and watch
every now and then
and see if I think
that's she's training hard enough
and if she is,
then I don't really have...
She knows what she's doing.
It's funny. I like...
I get so tired
of being a tough girl sometimes.
I would say "I just don't wanna be
a tough girl anymore."
I just wanna be...
Things to work and be easy
and just please.
When you say you don't wanna be
a tough girl all the time,
what do you wanna be?
You wanna be a little girl
that someone takes care of?
No, just when I'm home.
When I'm out,
I wanna go be tough girl.
When I come home,
I wanna be the three-legged kitty
and just, you know,
just sad, you know,
because when I come home, I'm just
dragging myself in through the door,
I'm like,.
You know?
I don't wanna be tough
when I'm home.
That's my job when I'm away,
and when I'm home,
it's my time just to be weak.
So let me ask you about boys.
I mean, it must be tough
when you date a chick
who can knock you out, right?
I mean, you're really pretty,
you're feminine,
and you're beautiful,
I think you're quite funny.
But when the shit hits the fan,
you can knock most
of your boyfriends out, so,
so do men get insecure with you?
Well, I think some would,
but I think that just kinda helps me
with the filter process.
If anyone's insecure with being someone...
With someone like me,
they never ask me
and I don't have to deal
with insecure guys.
She's gonna live to be
the world's oldest virgin...
Her mother loves this story.
Because she'll go out with any guy
that could beat her.
A lot of guys have tried.
She's still a virgin.
Gene LeBell.
We'd finished training the other day
and we were chatting about some stuff
and he started coughing
and I said,
"Are you okay, Gene?"
And he said,
"I'm a little sick."
And then he had one of them
Gene LeBell moments,
and he said...
"I'm getting old."
He said it in a way
in which he meant it.
And he said,
"You know, the only thing
keeping me alive is Ronda."
And I said, "What?"
He went, "Yeah, she's the only reason
I'm alive right now."
I have someone else
to look forward to."
- And so you should...
- That's really sweet.
Yeah, that's what he told me.
And with working with you,
right?
I see how, you know,
the way you train
with such fire,
such passion, it's...
I know it's for yourself
but I always feel that you...
you're doing it for your team too.
Yeah, well...
I have daddy issues.
I aim to please.
Pretty much what my mom
chalked it up to.
She said that...
I wanna make my coaches proud of me.
You know, I actually, I care about...
The people I respect,
I care about their opinion
a little bit too much
and I respect all my coaches.
Alexis, you are undoubtedly
the most credentialed grappler
that she has fought yet.
Do you think that you're gonna
be able to stop
the arm bar and what then?
Yeah, I definitely think
I'm going to be able to stop
the arm bar.
And it's all over!
Just like that!
Rowdy.
Ronda Rousey!
The concept of not the champion,
you know, there's people
that wanna be champions...
and then there's people
that want to be the best,
and there's people
that wanna be the best ever,
a legend,
and that's what she wants to be.
She wants to people to remember,
"Oh, do you remember
Ronda Rousey?"
She changed the way
that we look at women.
She changed the way
that women look at themselves,
and she definitely changed
the way little girls
look at what's possible.
You know, when I was growing up,
little girls played over here
and the boys played over here.
She smashed that whole concept.
For little girls,
they realize now,
women can do anything.
If a woman can go in there
and do what Ronda Rousey does,
women can do anything.
She's a very powerful figure
for women,
and I think she's
a very powerful figure for men,
and how we look at women now,
you know.
Because all these men
are walking around going,
"Oh man, she'll kick my ass.
She'll kick my ass."
I don't ever remember a scenario
in the history of the world
where a woman
could kick a man's ass,
or people believed
that they could,
until Ronda Rousey.
She's like a fucking
superhero now.
Here we go!
An extraordinary win
against Cat Zingano
in UFC 184,
solidified Ronda's dominance
in world sport.
ESPN awarded her
Fighter of the Year,
beating legendary boxer
Floyd Money Mayweather.
Wow!
Rowdy Ronda Rousey
puts her undefeated career
on the line against
nine and 0 Bethe Correia.
Bethe Correia really disrespected her
at a weigh-in
and said, "When I beat you",
you're probably gonna commit suicide."
This fight has become
extremely personal to me
and I've never wanted
to beat someone
so badly in my life.
And I'm definitely not gonna
finish her off quickly.
I want to make sure
that she remembers
every second of that day.
Ronda Rousey had become
such a worldwide phenomenon
that when she went to Brazil
to fight Bethe Correia,
she was cheered
by the Brazilian fans
who were normally fiercely loyal
to their own fighters and athletes.
At one point, they broke
into chants of "Ronda, Ronda!"
Rousey held an open workout
in front of hundreds
of admiring fans
and later signed autographs
on the beach.
So much for Bethe Correia's
hometown advantage.
It's time!
Bethe Correia!
Ronda Rousey!
Before she would wanna
go clinch.
Now when she's hitting them,
they wanna clinch her
and if you wanna clinch her,
that's her game.
After disrespecting
Ronda, her father,
and her family,
Bethe Correia became
the second opponent
to learn a very painful lesson.
- And it's all over!
- Oh, my goodness.
I just wanna say we lost
a really close friend,
Rowdy Roddy Piper,
who gave me permission
to use his name as a fighter,
so I hope him and my dad
had a good time watching this today.
For someone in Ronda's position,
with everything
that's coming at her,
and all the accolades,
it's so hard for a young person
to be grounded and understand
what's important.
And to understand, you know what,
that's all great stuff,
but those people
are really not my friends.
You know, I'm gonna keep
my friends close
and, you know,
those are associates,
and yeah, you know,
I'll be nice to them.
But these are the people
I'm gonna trust.
She's been very smart about it.
She's grounded.
She has her mom who she adores,
and, you know,
is very tough on her,
but is honest with her.
You know, I think she might do
the fighting thing
for a couple more years...
and then get out
because there's
no long-term payoff
of continually being punched
in the face
that, you know,
no matter who you are,
no matter how good you are,
eventually you get old,
or you get unlucky.
I don't think
she has a definite plan B.
She has another possibility
she's looking at,
maybe opening a gym,
but I don't see her being
in that life for the long haul.
At least, I hope not.
I think at some point Ronda
will probably
have to make a choice
'cause it's hard to juggle both.
If movies is just something
she's doing for fun
and she can do on the side,
I mean, I did that for 11 years.
I think if you asked her right now,
she'd probably choose fighting
over making another movie,
- but that may change.
- I don't know.
What I see right now,
I see more big things
that come for her,
movies and stuff.
I don't know. Maybe she quit the fight.
You never know.
I want to...
be able to beat all the girls
that you could even mention
as being competition for me
and then I want to retire
undefeated.
And we were talking
about the day
that I'd probably be done
and, like, he was saying,
like, even after my fight,
a couple days after the fight,
I came and sat
and just watched everybody train
because I just wanted to be
at the gym
and then I would get so antsy
just watching everybody
that the next day
I came and trained,
and it's just that I like being there.
And the day... When the day comes
that I just don't feel
like being there
is the day that I'm going to stop.
If someone thinks
that Holly Holm
can't beat Ronda,
they don't understand fighting.
Holly can beat Ronda
but Ronda can definitely
beat Holly,
and it's who's gonna impose
their will in their game.
If Ronda went out to try
to out-box Holly Holm,
she's making a mistake
and she can lose that fight.
Ronda Rousey, I think,
is dealing with this loss
in the way that she deals
with things.
You know, Ronda is a different,
special individual.
That's why she is who she is,
and that's why she became
as big as she has become,
and she's motivated
by greatness.
She wants to be seen
as the best ever.
She wanted to stay undefeated
and now she wants to avenge her loss,
win the title
and beat all the girls
that are looked at as, you know,
probably the top three
toughest girls in the world.
It's coming to an end sooner
or later.
Exactly. I was talking
about that with Ronda.
It's a huge part of your life.
It's gonna be
like losing a child.
What's gonna get you up
in the morning after that?
I always think about that,
and you know, Abel Sanchez,
I was up in Big Bear
with Yeni Kolodkin.
He said, "Edmond, you wanna
hear something?" I said, "What?"
"You're never gonna have a fighter
like that,
and you know what sucks?"
I said, "What?"
He said, "That you're young."
I said, "Holy shit,
I didn't think about that."
And I know I don't have that giving up,
you know,
I'll never give up, but...
I dunno if I could even say words,
you know, that day
when I'm gonna retire.
I don't think
I can speak about it.
Ronda is just the best fighter
in the world...
to me.
So if you were talking
to the kids out there,
what advice would you give them to say
that, you know,
no matter where you're from,
you can also do this?
You know, that's funny,
I keep bringing up
my mom's lines.
But she used to have this...
one that, "No one has the right
to beat you."
A lot of the other countries,
they don't have better programs
and multi-million dollar
facilities and all this stuff.
Like, she always put it
in clear, she's like, "Look",
the training opportunities you have
are not what they have,
but you can take what you have
and you can make it just
as effective as what they have.
You just have to want it more.
"And you can't give everybody else
too much credit."
But I don't know,
I think that even if it looks like
you don't have much,
you can find a way.
There's a way, there's a solution
to every problem.
Someone's got to be number one.
Someone's got to be a doctor.
There's no reason why not you.
Four years ago, I believe
she didn't have anything to eat.
She was struggling.
But she came up
from zero to a hundred.
If there was a movie,
it couldn't have been written
more perfectly
the way everything has evolved,
you know,
in this beautiful, divine way.
It's an amazing, amazing story.
She is a big role model
for everyone.
She's so giving. So loving.
Every time we see Ronda,
it's a hug, a kiss, I love you.
I've never seen anyone
that wants to win
the way she wants to win.
She has this drive,
more than I've ever seen a man
ever strive to win
or to succeed.
She's unique in every way.
If you make a...
big hole, like this octagon size
and throw her inside the hole
and every day,
she gonna get better and better
and with no teacher,
and nobody help her,
because she's a hard trainer.
She has no fear.
She's a fighter.
And so, my story, unlike Ronda's
is coming to an end.
We know one thing:
The bond between a father
and a daughter
is a very, very special one.
And love is the most
powerful motivator of all.
The future for Ronda
may seem uncertain...
but as the dust clears,
a beautiful path is revealed.
She has left her mark forever...
for those to follow
eternally grateful.
It's been six years riding
this beautiful adventure.
Seems like yesterday
when I first sat across
from this kind
and humble young lady.
Her relentless drive
to prove her father right
and a mother ever present
like a shadow
through the storms and the rain.
So let's go back
to where this all started...
a small room far away
from the cares and uncertainty...
for just one last question.
So when you become
world champion,
which is going to be
pretty soon...
I think...
Do you ever think about going back
to that little pond...
and... skipping one more rock?
Actually, I've been planning
a road trip up there.
I wanna go up...
I wanna go up Route 66,
like, to, like, Chicago,
and then I wanna go out
and shoot over to North Dakota
and I wanna visit his grave
and go to our old house
and hopefully find
that same spot
and...
just to, kind of, see it.
I haven't seen it
since I was a little kid.
We kind of just left
the whole life there,
and I haven't really been able
to look at it again.
And I feel like...
if I actually do win a world title,
I'll have... You know,
'cause my dad told me
I'd win the Olympics and I'm really proud
of what I've done,
but I haven't actually won it.
And...
I feel like if I do win a world title,
I'll have something to, kinda,
bring back to him.
So I wanna, like,
leave something there,
but I don't know what yet.
I'll think of something.
Yeah.
But the one thing I know
is I'll meet him again
and we'll laugh and we'll sing
and we'll dance in the rain.
So I'll keep pressing forward
being all I can be.
And I know in my heart
that my father...
he's always with me.
You can see.
You see I'm holding here.
Here, and you'll break
his leg here.
Very simple.
Okay, just drop it down here.
See here?
And then come, come here.
Come here with this now, right.
- Look.
- It looks like it too.
You can only use this footage
if it says Yin's name on it.
Yeah.
Cut.
Yeah, do it.
- It's the writer.
- There we go.
Online reset. So let me...
- Okay.
- And Damon's the composer.
Yes. I am always the composer.
How is New York City?
So far, so good.
We're gonna go
get to see some titties.
It's over. He figured it out, Yin.
- It's over now.
- That's it! Done, over.
My career's over.
Yeah, he knows the two chords now.
Oh, no!
Oh! No, no, don't change it.