Cat Zingano knows the exact moment she realized something wasn’t right. Unfortunately for the women’s bantamweight contender, it was during the middle of a UFC 200 contest with Julianna Pena.
“Right after the first round was over, my head was everywhere but that cage, and it was shocking to me,” Zingano told MMAjunkie. “I was extremely surprised that that kind of thing could even happen to me. In the cage, I feel like it’s my sanctuary. Life shuts down outside of those octagon walls, and it’s me and my opponent and our breath and our goals and everything like that. That was the first time in my entire career that I just wasn’t in there with myself.
“There’s been moments when I’ve felt a little bit out of body, and it took me a minute to wake up, but I was never just not in the cage.”
As the fight wore on, Pena gained strength and utilized a few slick grappling transitions to move to dominant positions. Zingano (9-2 MMA, 2-2 UFC) deftly fought off any submission attempts but wasn’t able to reverse her fortunes. While it was her first time in the octagon in nearly 17 months, Zingano said her head was anywhere but where it needed to be following that first five minutes.
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Julianna Pena and Cat Zingano
“It was weird,” Zingano recalled. “It didn’t happen in the first round. The first round, it was same old ‘Cat, smash. Go get her.’ Then the second round, all of a sudden I’m looking at my knees, and they’re bleeding. Then I’m like, ‘Oh, Herb Dean. Wow. Check that out. He’s my ref. That’s awesome.’ Then I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s Joe Rogan. I can hear his voice.’
“I remember looking outside of the octagon and seeing a chick with a big necklace on and wondering who she was, and why did she have that seat. All the way to the kind of weirdness of the night – normally, coaches have to scream at you to hear them, and I could hear my coaches and her coaches just talking. That’s crazy to me, and it’s weird for me to even notice these things. I’ve never just not been in it like that, and it was totally weird. I remember how much time was left.”
Zingano does remember deciding she wasn’t going to allow her opponent to earn a finish, and she succeeded in that goal. However, she dropped a clearcut unanimous decision, 29-28 on all three judges’ cards.
But there was one other thought that Zingano deemed even more important. Right there, in the middle of the cage at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, the 34-year-old contender realized what it was going to take for her to return to the form that once earned her a shot at the UFC women’s bantamweight title – she needed to take her 10-year-old son Brayden and relocate from her longtime Colorado home to San Diego to train with the crew at Alliance MMA.
“I’ve been waiting for that light bulb to go off, and the craziest, crappiest thing is that I had tried out Alliance – I did my whole camp there, I was all in,” Zingano said. “I sacrificed time with my son. I went back and forth to Colorado the entire trip, spending my rest days on an airplane and playing tag with my son, so I really didn’t get that biology dialed in as much as I wanted to, but he needed me, and I needed him.
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“Halfway through the fight, all of a sudden, ‘I’m like, ‘I need out of here.’ Not the cage, but the situation. I need my son. I need this change. I love coach Eric Del Fierro. I love my training partners. I love the people in San Diego. And it’s crazy to me, but the light bulb went off in the middle of the fight, where it was like, I have physically and motivationally everything I need to do this, but I want to do it now. I want to talk to Eric right now. I want to tell him, ‘Get me to San Diego.’”
Leaving Colorado wasn’t an easy choice, but Zingano said it was the proper one. While she no longer has any ties to the gyms, there are still a pair of academies that bear Zingano’s name, as well as that of her late husband, who tragically took his own life in 2014.
Zingano enjoyed her time at Elevation Fight Team but ultimately decided a clean break was best for her and her son. And she knew it before she even unwrapped her hands following the UFC 200 loss.
“The fight’s over, and we go in the back, and I’m sad,” Zingano recalled. “I’m upset, but to have the realization was huge for me. I’ve ben waiting for that feeling. I’ve been looking for that feeling for over two years.
“I have no affiliation to my gym in Colorado, Zingano Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It’s over. It’s done. I have nothing to do with them. It was hard to train in Colorado and have that gym still exist with the complicated ghosts that I still have with it. To be able to have that feeling – that family, kind of motivated feeling that I found at Alliance, I’m extremely, extremely grateful for.”
Of course, selling her coaches on the idea was one step. Selling her son was the next. Fortunately, he was up for the adventure.
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“I got back to Colorado, and the next day was my son’s birthday, and I kind of prefaced it for him and told him how it’s basically the same but you trade the mountains for water,” Zingano said. “He was game. It didn’t work for either of us to be apart during training camp. I fight for love, and I fight for my family, and to not have my family, it just didn’t feel complete.
“(Brayden) is my motivation, and it’s a selfish sport. But to be selfish as a parent, that sucks. That doesn’t work. I want to be here for him, so to not include him and not see him and not have him see me, it wasn’t right. It didn’t feel good. It’s not right for me or him.”
In addition to the psychological and emotional benefits of being with her son, even during training camp, Zingano sees physical benefits to the relocation, as well. After all, the same rigors that make training at high altitude a benefit can also be viewed as a drawback in terms of rest for the body.
“I think being at sea level is physically helpful for me,” Zingano said. “Colorado has that great high altitude, and altitude is great for building that cardio, but it’s not necessarily great for healing and recovery. Obviously in this sport, we’re getting beat up, especially with head injuries. Just the physiology of what’s going on in our bodies all the time – I’m not sure (the altitude) is optimal for what we’re doing, especially as long as I’ve been doing it.”
Zingano’s next move hasn’t yet been determined. She admits she wanted to return to the cage as quickly as possible, but Del Fierro recommended she take a little time to settle in before she got back to the cage and looked to break a two-fight slide – the only two professional losses of her career to date.
Zingano said it was a wise move, and she’s reaping the benefits thus far.
“I wanted to fight right away,” Zingano said. “As soon as the fight was over, I wanted to move, and I wanted to get back on a card. I wanted to maintain being in shape. Eric is like, ‘Let’s get you settled. Let’s get these things worked on. Let’s get your focus dialed in and take care of the things we can handle.’ Nothing was wrong in that fight as far as my technique, my cardio, my skill. The things that didn’t go right, let’s work on those. I’m working on that.
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“Being around (UFC bantamweight champion) Dominick Cruz and seeing all the smaller guys I have here to train with is awesome. Knowing that Dominick knows exactly what it’s like to hold the bantamweight title and defend it, I want to be around it. I see how hard he works. If I work as hard as him, there’s no reason that I can’t have what he has. It’s a cool gauge to have. I’m very motivated here, and I’m excited and I’m happy.”
Zingano is currently ranked No. 7 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings. While she’s just outside of the group largely considered immediate title contenders, a key victory in her next outing could change her outlook in what’s been a volatile division as of late.
Zingano is anxious to get back to action and prove that the changes she’s made will bring her focus back in rapid fashion.
“It’s a completely new chapter,” Zingano said. “I had to close a lot of things to come out to San Diego, which is very cathartic on some levels. I’m naturally introverted, so the challenge of socially moving and changing, that’s probably the biggest struggle, but the work ethic is there and the desire is there and the goals are there.
“That’s what I’ve been looking for, that feeling, so here I am.”
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