Michelle Waterson-Gomez channeling 'tug' to make UFC return into analyst, acting careers

USA Today

06-05-2025

Michelle Waterson-Gomez channeling 'tug' to make UFC return into analyst, acting careers
Years of evidence proves the transition from active UFC fighter into retirement life is more difficult than seamless for the majority of athletes. Michelle Waterson-Gomez is in the midst of that struggle right now.
After hanging up her gloves following a loss at UFC 313 in June, longtime octagon veteran and women's MMA pioneer Waterson-Gomez (18-13 MMA, 6-9 UFC) is going through a period of significant change. She has already found more post-career success than a lot of others who exit the sport, but she wouldn't claim it's been simple.
"Anyone that tells you turning the page is easy – it's easier said than done," Waterson-Gomez told MMA Junkie. "I dedicated 18 years of my life to being a professional athlete, and now I have to switch gears and understand how to apply the discipline I had physically, the mental discipline, into a different type of hustle. I'm blessed and we're doing a lot of things, but right now, it's me having to prove myself all over again in these different arenas."
Fortunately for Waterson-Gomez, the different arenas she has gravitated toward don't fall far from where she is comfortable. She is a desk analyst on UFC broadcasts with increasing regularity, and also added a big-time acting credit to her acting resume in Tom Hardy's HAVOC, which recently released on Netflix and for a stretch occupied the No. 1 spot for popular viewed movies.
The role of analyst is something Waterson-Gomez is strongly embracing, she said. However, it's also the part of her new workload that generates the most temptation to return to competition.
Waterson-Gomez, 39, only sees one place that she would ever fight MMA again, but she is doing her best to resist that urge and continue to use her plethora of experience in the sport to help educate viewers watching from home.
"Even now watching the fights, having to call a fight (like Gillian Robertson vs. Marina Rodriguez at UFC n ESPN 67), where I fought both of these girls, it kind of gets my blood boiling and it makes me want to jump back in there," Waterson-Gomez said. "Especially hearing them on the mic and stuff, it's just like you want to get back in there. Once an athlete always an athlete, and it's hard to separate yourself from that, and it's very easy to fall back into getting into that routine because it's what you're used to.
"It tugs at me all the time. As far as MMA goes, for me the UFC is the top of the top and if I were to ever go back it would be with the UFC. … I'm understanding now it's just that dedication of time. If I want to be great at this chapter, I have to dedicate my time to that. If I want to be a great analyst, if I want to be a great actor I have to dedicate just as much time to that as I did fighting."
During her fighting career, Waterson-Gomez established a reputation as one of the most widely-beloved people in the industry. She always fought with heart, was not attached to any major controversies, and was an overall positive role model and ambassador for the sport.
It's Waterson-Gomez's natural instinct to see the best or the most positive out of any situation or person, and although she understands that can't always be the reality when it comes to offering her opinions on the desk, that's the underlying outlook of how she wants to serve the fans.
"The hardest part for me is when I talk about fights, I'm usually talking about fights with my friends and with my teammates, so it's not as PG," Waterson-Gomez said. "Trying to clean that up and tighten that up is hard for me, then also it's hard for me to cast judgement or analyze a fighter before I get to see them fight. That was something I always hated a fighter, seeing other people that weren't stepping into the octagon judge me and tell me what I was going to do stepping into the octagon. You don't know what I'm doing to do. You weren't with me when I'm training.
"A lot of times when the fighters do interviews, a lot of when they are doing, if it's 100 percent of what they are doing, they are probably telling the reporter of the journalist 20 percent of what they are going to do. They are making their own stories up based off statistics, and I never wanted to box a fighter into what their capacity was in a statistic, but that's what I have to do. We have to analyze a fighter based off what we see, so wrapping my head around that and trying to do it in a way where I'm not disrespecting the fighters and more kind of enjoying both fighters and their strengths and trying to break down the fight in a way where it's the most respectful to both fighters."
To hear more from Waterson-Gomez, check out her complete appearance on "The Bohnfire" podcast with MMA Junkie senior reporter Mike Bohn above.