UFC star Vanessa Demopoulos admits that previously working as a stripper on top of her full-time fighting career was "pure insanity".
Demopoulos, 33, ditched her job as a stripper just weeks before winning her UFC debut in January. She submitted Silvana Gomez Juarez at UFC 270 and subsequently produced a viral moment by jumping into the arms of commentator Joe Rogan's during her post-fight interview.
'Lil Monster' returns to the Octagon on Saturday night at UFC 257 in Las Vegas against Jihn Yu Frey. Ahead of the bout, she admitted that balancing a stripping and fighting career was extremely "taxing" on her body.
"You wanna talk about full blown calisthenics and cardio, it was pure insanity," she told Mirror Fighting . "I've never not trained three or four times a day since I was 21-years-old. It was super difficult to go and give it my all in the gym, go home to recalibrate, then go to work an emotionally and physically taxing job.
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"It was really hard, but also the biggest aspect was I loved everything I was doing. I loved training, dancing and being excited. It was a work of passion, but it was difficult. I love my life now and I loved my life then, so i looked at it more as a privilege but I definitely chose a really difficult route.
"I was happy to go work every day, it was fulfilling. I was happy to go train and sleep on the mats in between my training sessions, it's weird to say that but it's exactly how I felt."
Demopoulos earned a $50,000 performance bonus for her submission win against Gomez Juarez, but the real moment of the night was her priceless reaction to being interviewed by Rogan. Demopoulos admitted she was taken back by the reaction that it received online as she was just being herself in the moment.
"My team knows me and knows like 'that's just Vanessa' but it was really cool to see how much attention the world gave to just me being me," she added. "That's the most genuine thing that I think any before can ask for because so many people are trying to do something and I was just like 'I did it'.
"I feel like everyone has that internal reaction, but I'm just very vocal about it. I was like 'oh my god! It's Joe Rogan.' It was just a super cool moment, I don't know him personally but I always assumed he was a pretty cool guy."
