Ep. 41: Chad Mendes
The Hunting Collective
MeatEater
4.5 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2018
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At just 33, Chad Mendes has enjoyed a lot of success and fame. He was an All-American wrestler in college and quickly rose through the ranks of the UFC to be a top contender in his weight class. With a record of 18-4 and an already storied career, he's been called the most underrated MMA fighter of all time.
I met Chad two years ago in turkey camp with John Dudley and immediately found him to be a thoughtful hunter, a damn good wild game cook, and the life of the party.
Chad is in a unique position thanks to the notoriety he's gained as a fighter. Hundreds of thousands of folks who have never hunted are exposed to the pursuit through his content.
In this podcast we discussed his upcoming fight against Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 232, the future of his career, what he hopes to achieve in the hunting world, and his "why" on many subjects. Enjoy.
Connect with Ben and MeatEater
Ben on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop MeatEater Merch
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of the hunting collective. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm Ben O'Brien and today I am joined by a great Chad Mendez. |
| 0:15.0 | Chad Mendez is a man that you may know from his exploits in the fighting game. |
| 0:21.0 | He's a UFC featherweight fighter with a record of 18 and 4. |
| 0:25.0 | He's had some legendary fight status career. He's currently in the midst of the comeback. |
| 0:30.0 | He's going to fight UFC 232 Saturday December 29th in Vegas against one Alexander Volkanovski. |
| 0:38.0 | But that's not really the reason I sat that one Chad. |
| 0:41.0 | I met Chad a couple of years ago in a turkey camp at John Dudley's place and was immediately |
| 0:48.0 | shaken by just how cool a duty was, how much fun we had together, how much he really cared about |
| 0:53.0 | while meat, while animals, while places, all the things that I and you care about. |
| 0:59.0 | So I figured for all these reasons he's a great person to talk to. |
| 1:03.0 | He has a good angle on being a celebrity outside the hunting space and having to deal with speaking about hunting |
| 1:09.0 | to a broader public and this heightened his awareness around what he says and does and what his goals are. |
| 1:15.0 | So without further ado, Chad Mendes from Sacramento at his gym, get ready to punch it up UFC 232. |
| 1:26.0 | Enjoy! |
| 1:30.0 | No pressure, Chad Mendes. How you doing, sir? |
| 1:34.0 | I'm doing great, man. I'm here in Sacramento. We're about a week and a half out from our fight. |
| 1:39.0 | Yes. Biggest fight of my life. Every fight is the biggest fight of my life. |
| 1:43.0 | But no small thing to be able to take some time out to sit with my dumb ass and talk about it, |
| 1:47.0 | hunting different things like that. I could talk about hunting all day. |
| 1:50.0 | That's like, I know you're back fighting. I mean, it took a break for a while and you mostly just hunted, right? |
| 1:57.0 | Yeah, so I started a business called Fins and Feathers and basically what it is, we call it a celebrity outdoor service. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from MeatEater, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of MeatEater and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.