You’ve probably all seen the commercial by now – Dwayne Wade attempts to fend off actress/author wife Gabrielle Union in a number of physical challenges. She narrowly passes him in a spin class leaderboard and he bests her on the jump rope all while hawking Gatorade.
While the manufactured scenes are intense, they don’t hold a candle to one of MMA’s biggest power couples. To hear it from UFC welterweight Anthony Rocco Martin, he and girlfriend Kayla Harrison are far more competitive than that.
Man, you’re talking about the two most ultra-competitive people in the world. Martin told The Top Turtle MMA Podcast. People think that what we say [to each other] is kind of a joke, but people don’t have any idea how really competitive we are.
And it’s not just in the gym that the two get their competitive juices flowing. Both share that competitive drive even when the stakes are far lower.
We lose and we can’t even talk to each other, when we play a card game, Martin said with a laugh.
But when it comes time to get in the gym, a clear winner emerges in the bout for most competitive.
We’re definitely ultra-competitive, but I think if you wanted to say, when we enter the gym, I would say her, he admitted. I think I have a little less of an ego in the gym. I’ve just been around the game a little longer and I know ‘hey, you don’t need to win every single scenario.
That mentality is exactly what we see with the two-time Olympic judo gold medalist. Her thought process in the gym is to treat everything as if it were life or death.
In her brain, you die if you give up this takedown, Martin shared.
Martin admits that he also has a bit of that mentality in the gym, but has been around MMA long enough that he’s more familiar with giving up situations here or there. While it certainly creates intense situations in the gym, or around the go-fish table, Martin believes it all leads to a big year for the two of them.
She’s motivated and I’m motivated, and I think that we’re both building to make a heck of a 2019, he said.
Both are looking for their second win of the year. Martin will do so this weekend against Demian Maia at UFC in Minneapolis, and Harrison gets her chance at PFL 4 on July 11th against Morgan Frier.
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Author Daniel Vreeland is a co-founder of the Top Turtle Podcast, and a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu at New England Submission Fighting in Amherst, Massachusetts.
