Former professional MMA fighter and current WWE NXT superstar Jessamyn Duke is a part of the four horsewomen, which also consists of Ronda Rousey, Marina Shafir and Shayna Baszler.
Duke recently held her first ever Q&A and was asked about the four horsewomen, which led to Duke talking about being on the UFC Ultimate Fighter and the time all of the four women were nearly swept away by a tsunami-like wave.
“God, I mean honestly, like listen, the four of us have done so much cool stuff together. It...cannot even put into words what being ringside at Wrestlemania when Ronda gets to jump the barricade and get in the ring with Stephanie McMahon. Who calls out...not only calls out Ronda, but also her horsewomen friends...like acknowledged us then. That was crazy, that was like ‘is this real? Is this real? Is this really real and happening?’ It was and it is, but besides the obvious ones, I feel like everybody knows like we all love wrestling. We’ve done all kinds of wrestling stuff together, but we were also roommates for quite awhile and that is like...God, what a great time in my life. So special and so amazing to find like a sisterhood like that at a time when I needed it badly.
As traumatic as the Ultimate Fighter was at times, it was worth it to go through because of the friendships that I got from it. Specifically the friendships with Ronda and Marina and Shayna, that was worth going through it...but you could not pay me to go back and go through it again. So of course, we all became roommates after the show. One of my favorite stories that involved all of us, I don’t know if I ever told this story. Pretty much, anytime we all hang out, I have to bring it up and be like ‘do you guys remember this?’ We lived on Venice Beach and there was a storm coming in, we were like ‘hey if we get up early and this storms rolling in and if you get up early before the sun rises, it’s gonna cause this crazy looking cloud formations and colors and it’ll be this spectacular thing’ to watch with this storm rolling in and when the sun rises.
It was supposed to be like this perfect thing that people were talking about and we were like ‘let’s do it.’ We’ll get up early, we’ll make coffee, we’ll walk down to the beach, it’ll be great. So we’re like ‘let’s do it, let’s do it.’ To be fair, getting up like that early for all of us, that was like...everyone is training or in training camp. We were already like sacrificing any sleep at all, we were like ‘this is gonna be great, this is gonna be worth it, this is gonna be amazing.’ So we all get out coffee, we like get all cozied up in like our hoodies and sweats and lookin’ all like whatever. We’re going down to the beach, I don’t know if anyone’s been to the beach in Venice, but it’s very long. It’s very wide, there’s a long way from where the sand starts to where the water starts. It’s a long, long walk. So we’re just taking our time and it’s really nice and we’re all being really cute, we’re all excited and we get all the way to the water. We sit, we have our coffee and we’re looking and it is wild.
It is unbelievable, just as we got there, you could start to see the colors. The waves were big and they weren’t really always, so the waves are big and they’re crashing in. We’re kind of sitting up on this hill, not a hill, but there’s the beach and then there’s like a little ledge of sand and we’re just sitting there. There’s a pretty good distance to the water, we had pretty much went all the way there. We’re just sitting one that ledge and in the distance...I had a little bit of coffee and I’m looking and I’m like ‘that is a really big wave out there, right?’ Then they're like ‘that’s not a wave,’ we’re all doing this (squinting) and saying ‘that’s not a wave.’ I’m like ‘that looks like a really big wave,’ like really big. We all just spend probably the next two minutes discussing whether or not this wave is real or not, finally it reaches a point...so it was like a thin line, like you could just see the white at the top of the wave. Then as it got closer, you could just see it and we’re like ‘that is definitely a wave, that’s a big wave coming in here.’
The sun is coming up...it’s beautiful, it’s like one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever seen. We’re like ‘wow guys, just wow.’ Then that wave gets closer and closer and closer, it is not slowing down. It is not getting smaller, it is rushing towards us quickly and it is as high as the ledge we are sitting on...if not higher. We’re sitting and it's like eye level and we’re like ‘should we go, should we go?’ That wave crosses like and it hits the beach, we get up and we’re like ‘oh my God, it’s coming...this wave is coming.’ We all get up and we’re like ‘oh my God,’ the wave like rushes over us. It hits and we all get up and we are spilling coffee, we’re all losing like flip flops and sunglasses. We’re losing everything, we’re freaking out and we are scattering. It was like we were mesmerized by this wave until it literally hit us, it was big. We’re all like running in this knee deep water this is rushing in, like a tsunami. Basically, like a mini tsunami that hit Venice Beach.
The four of us are running through the thing, trying not to get sucked back out into the ocean. We made it, but barely. We all just ran until we got to the parking lot, we ran as far as we could and we look like drowned rats. This is like six in the morning, we got up to watch a sunrise and we almost got swept away into the Pacific Ocean. I’m like that’s how it happens, like when you read the stories, that’s how someone got swept away. That’s how it happens, I experienced it. All four of us were just sitting there like ‘wow, what a big wave,’ until it literally hit us. It’s amazing that all we lost were just some flip flops and the coffee that we were drinking, because it really could’ve ended much worse. I love telling that story, I don’t know why, but I find it hilarious. That could’ve been it, all four of us could’ve been swept away right there because we just wanted to get up early and watch a sunrise with some coffee...together as friends,” says Duke during her Duke Talks Q&A.
This is the first time Duke has told the story publicly, so it will be interesting to see if the other members of the four horsewomen will share their version of events in the future.
