JNPO: California dreamin’ about Brian Ortega and Ronda Rousey
Photo Credit: MMAWeekly.com
While I’m looking at 15 inches of fresh snow to clean up here in New Hampshire, I’d much rather be in sunny Southern California with this week’s Josh Nason’s Punch-Out guest Brian Martin, deputy sports editor of the Orange County Register and SoCal News Group.
We begin our conversation with further exploration of the hummus debate that rocked the MMA world last Friday during the UFC 222 morning weigh-ins and whether chocolate hummus is any good.
After learning about how Brian got into covering the sport and how the OC Register’s coverage has evolved over time, we talked about his experience covering the launch of Ronda Rousey’s MMA career in a parking lot show to her evolution into WWE and the changes he has seen in her along the way.
We closed out the show by looking at two big storylines coming out of last Saturday’s UFC 222: the arrival of Brian Ortega and the performances of two young prospects in Mackenzie Dern and Sean O’Malley. We also geeked out at the eventual Max Holloway-Ortega fight/series of fights.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.