CLEVELAND -- Most professional mixed martial artists choose to dedicate their entire working lives to the gymnasium, but UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic is anything but the typical athlete focused solely on his craft.
While balancing his training schedule at Strong Style MMA in Independence, Miocic serves as a firefighter/paramedic in Valley View and Oakwood Village and is preparing his house for the arrival of his first child, a baby girl due on August 1.
“Just being grateful and blessed,” Miocic said. “One day, it’s all not going to be here. It’s great and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, my God. Yay!’ Next day, it’s not here. Having that mentality, that fighting spirit of waking up every day and knowing what you’ve got to do, you’ve always got to do it, no matter how tired you are.”
In order to keep up schedules as a firefighter/paramedic for two departments and a championship fighter in the UFC, Miocic gets a lot of support from his chiefs.
“At the fire station, both of the chiefs are amazing helping me out,” Miocic said. “They understand what I do, and I’m very lucky. I’m very, very lucky to have such two amazing chiefs. In Oakwood, I started there, and Chief James Schade’s amazing.
“Ken Papas, he’s the chief at Valley View. He understands too. I still work, but they understand. They know when I have to go sometimes, and they don’t give me a hard time. They’re like, ‘You’ve got to work, though,’ but they’re very lenient with me. I’m very lucky.”
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Miocic did not have much time to savor his dominant unanimous-decision victory over top-ranked contender Francis Ngannou after UFC 220 in Boston on January 20, as he was chosen to be a coach for the latest season of The Ultimate Fighter and had to catch a flight to Las Vegas for six weeks of taping for the build-up to his defense against Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 226 tonight.
Before Miocic made the decision to coach on TUF 27, he had to check with his wife, Ryan, who was three months pregnant with the couple’s first child when his fight against Cormier was announced. Taping concluded on March 1, and Miocic caught a flight to make it back in time to appear in the Cleveland Auto Show.
And in his trademark good-natured humor, Miocic laughed when talking about his family.
“I’m having a little baby, and oh, she’s going to ruin my life,” Miocic said. “It’s going to be terrible in a great way. I just cannot wait, can’t wait to hold her and just do things with her.”
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Although Miocic’s daughter is due in just a few weeks, she already has a soft spot in her father’s heart.
“Oh, it’s whatever she wants,” Miocic said. “Whatever she wants. She’s getting everything already. She already has a closet full of clothes she’ll probably never wear.”
Miocic joked that with his daughter’s due date falling under the zodiac sign, Leo, he could be in some trouble in a house full of other Leos, including his wife and one of their dogs.
A notorious joker, Miocic feels abandoned by his dog, Primo, a young Cane Corso with a penchant for leaving the champion’s side in favor of the women of the house.
“They’re all divas, so it’s going to be a terrible, terrible time in my household,” Miocic said. “I might go bald.
“My life is over…in a good way. I love the fight game more than anything, but listen, having a child, that’s all I care about.”