UFC's Dennis Bermudez aims to become the next YouTube sensation with new cooking channel

Being a top-10 featherweight in the UFC, it's clear that Dennis Bermudez can kick some ass, but what many might not know is that Bermudez can also cook some kick-ass meals.

‘The Menace', who recently defeated Rony Jason at UFC Fight Night 92 in August, has a YouTube channel mainly dedicated to cooking along with other content such as predictions, video blogs, and other things. Bermudez became a YouTuber in June, and in just four months he's compiled almost 100,000 views and over 5,000 subscribers.

MMA Fighting recently got the chance to catch up with ‘The Menace' to talk about his channel, and his cooking show.

Danny Segura: How did you end up doing YouTube videos?

Dennis Bermudez: So one night instead of taking my girlfriend out to dinner, I just bought a bunch of seafood and stuff like that. I thought it was pretty cool, I've never cooked sea food before, so I filmed the whole thing on Snapchat, being a goof that I am, you know, and some of the marketing team in the UFC saw it and they were like, 'Dennis this is so funny can you do this? Lest us know, we want to put it on our Snapchat'. And I started doing that, and it,s definitely been a progression from there.

I talked to my manager and it was like, we need to get this on YouTube, so I got a guy that's been filming them professionally, so like Snapchat is a glimpse and there is an extended version on my YouTube page. So there is that, and because I'm a fighter, I do fight predictions and fight reviews, you know, to give fans a perspective, a fighters perspective who's actually in the cage and watching these guys what I'm seeing. And then, adventure blogs, anything that I do that's not normal day-to-day stuff, you know. Throw it up there and let people see what's up.

DS: So you're now officially a YouTuber, what's that like?

DB: It's crazy because I'll be driving my car or something will happen where I'm just like my brain is constantly ticking on how to make this awesome because I see a lot of YouTubers that are doing very, very well financially and that's all they do. So I'm just like, man, maybe I'm being egotistic, but I'd like to think of it as optimistic but I'm I'm funnier than those guys I'm more clever, I'm a little crazier, I'll definitely kick their ass, and I think I can make better content, so I'm working on not only being the world champion, but being the YouTube champion.

DS: So out of all things, why cooking?

DB: I've always been cooking because you need to to cut weight, you know what im saying. So over the years I've come up with little tricks to make something taste better because diet food like grilled chicken and stuff like that is not amazing, you know. So I've learned tricks with lemon, adding garlic to give food a little more flavor, and over the years, I've become alright. And it's crazy because I'll be cooking, and not that I doubt myself, but like I cook the food and it comes out and I taste it and I'm like, 'Holy shit, I'm good, dude'. Like this is good sh*t.

So yeah, I surprise myself, and my girlfriend helps me too. I call her my assistant. So it's been like a learning process for the both of us because, you know, we don't want to just keep cooking the same things, so we go online and look up recepies and try them out. And we add a little more of our own kind of flare to it and see what happens.

DS: What's the best dish you can put out?

DB: It's crazy because when I get that question and I think about it, I'm like, 'Alright, the pressure is on. What do I do well', you know, because when I cook, I feel like it's almost like any MMA class I've ever taught. I try not to make it the exact same as I ever. So if you're like, 'Dennis, what's a recepie you know? I'm like, 'uhhhhhh'. I couldn't give you exact spects like, ‘Alright, add this much oil' like I just kind of wing it every time, you know, and sometimes it's better than others. But to answer your question, I can cook a BBQ marinated grilled chicken with some coconut-oil-burnt broccoli.

DS: What's the worst experience you've had cooking?

DB: I've definitely burnt stuff. I've burned a lot of popcorn in my day. The popcorn button is not always correct. It's usually a mistake like a misjudgment of time or I didn't hear the timer or something like that. But I can't put my finger on something I've directly messed up, you know, because it's sometimes my girlfriend that does that, and I'm like, 'God damn it! Why did you do that!'. (Bermudez laughed)

I still don't have the steak quite ready because the thickness of steak may vary, and I still don't have medium, medium rare down packed, you know. I still don't have that down. I just kind of wing it, like "it should be done, here lets cut it open, and oh it looks good'.