Would you say Brendan Schaub is a former collegiate football player, Heavyweight MMA fighter, web series host, and an American comedian – all in one?
Brendan achieved fame when he became a finalist and the runner-up of Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, but that is only when everything started.
He was a co-host with comedian Bryan Callen of The Fighter and the Kid, a twice-weekly podcast, while Brendan had his own podcast as well –Below the Belt. This show launched in February 2018.
Actually, Brendan became partners with Showtime, and they decided to rebrand Brendan’s solo podcast to “Below the Belt with Brendan Schaub”.
There is a web show that has the same name. Is there the need to mention who serves as the host?
As comedians simply go along well, Brendan and Theo Von announced on December 21, 2018, they were creating a podcast “King and the Sting”.
Brendan won the title of the first D’Arce choke in Ultimate Fighting Championship. Seems like the media loves seeing Brendan as a co-host, and E! invited him to serve as a commentator and co-host for their red carpet events.
Speaking of his personal life, Brendan is currently in a relationship with beautiful Joanna Zanella, and the couple has a baby boy – Tiger Pax Schaub.
The thing about this guy is that he found a way to use so much of his potentials and use them at the highest level.
Some people find it very hard to find the potential within themselves, not to talk about using it, or more of them for real.
Brendan truly proved himself in all of the above-mentioned areas – comedy, acting, martial arts, hosting, commenting, and football. Did you know Brendan’s nickname was “The Hybrid”?
Early Life
Brendan Peter Schaub, or Brendan Schaub as we all know him, was born on March 18, 1983, in Aurora, Colorado.
He considers himself an American and holds an American nationality.
Interestingly, he has English, German, and Italian descent as well.
His father, Peter Schaub, is an American, while his mother, Debra, has English descent.
He has a brother, Jay Schaub, but he is trying to keep things a low profile as it seems.
Brendan was all stage performer in football and lacrosse while he was in Overland High School.
Later, Brendan became a member of the football and lacrosse team while he joined the Whittier College.
When Brendan transferred to the University of Colorado, he played tight end and he was red-shirted there.
He actually appeared in 26 games after moving to the University of Colorado.
Brendan joined the Arena Football League with the Utah Blaze once he graduated from college.
He spent some time with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills while being on practice.
Career Development
Brendan obviously didn’t see himself as a football player for the rest of his life, and that is why he gave it up.
After returning to Colorado, he began training in mixed martial arts.
Brendan trained box for six months, and invested so much of himself into the whole training process, that he won a Golden Gloves title.
Later, he won the 2007 Colorado – New Mexico Golden Gloves Novice title, which meant a lot to him and gave him more ambition to go further.
This gave him the motivation to found UFC middleweight contender Nate Marquardt’s gym in Aurora, which is a High Altitude Martial Arts training center.
Schaub signed a contract for team Rashad and competed on the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter.
He faced Demico Rogers and won in the 1st round.
This was Brendan’s first fight on the show, and he defeated Demico via the first-round submission and with an anaconda choke.
What is more, this brought him to the quarter-finals of The Ultimate Fighter in 2009.
Brendan became a Colorado Golden Gloves boxing champion, which helped him become widely known among boxing fans.
Also, he was awarded a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and it usually takes about 5 years of training to get it.
Brendan met Shane Carwin, the UFC heavyweight contender, during this period of his life.
Since they met, Brendan and Shane clicked and became training partners and friends.
Friendship with Carwin made Brendan join Ultimate Fighting Championship.
In a short period of time, Brendan defeated some of the famous names in UFC, such as Demico Rogers, Marcus Jones, and Jon Madsen (a teammate Brendan defeated at the quarterfinals), but lost in the final from Roy Nelson.
His next fight against Chase Gormley ended up well for Brendan, as he defeated Gromley at UFC Live: Vera VS Jones with a 47-second TKO.
Next, Brendan entered a challenge with Chris Tucherer, who was Brock Lesnar’s trainer (the former UFC heavyweight champion).
Brendan Schaub defeated Chris Tucherer at the first round.
Brendan won the Ring of the Fire Heavyweight Championship when he defeated Bojan Spalevic in 2009, while he won the Knockout of the Night in 2011 while defeating Serbian boxer Mirko Filipovic.
The year 2010 was the main credit debut for Brendan, at the UFC 121 in Anaheim, California.
Schaub’s opposite was Gabriel Gonzaga, former UFC heavyweight title challenger, but Brendan emerged as a total winner of this match.
This was the first time for Brendan that a fight passed through the first round mark and the fight went the full distance.
Next year, in March 2011, Schaub faced Mirko Cro Cop and won the match.
Actually, Brendan was tentatively booked for a match with Frank Mir on March 19, 2011.
Still, Schaub faced Mirko instead and won the contest via 3rd-round punch.
Brendan won with a knockout in the third round, and because of this, he earned Knockout of the Night award.
He can thank for this victory to his well-placed counter-punch in the first place, and to a four-fight win streak at the end.
This record was ended on August 27, 2011, by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, as he knocked out in the first round.
Second serious loss Brendan experienced was at UFC 145 on April 21, 2012, against Ben Rothwell.
Brendan faced Lavar Johnson at UFC 157 on February 23, 2013, but lost once again.
Interestingly, these two were expected to face in 2012 at UFC on Fox 5.
Johnson had a groin injury back then, and the match was canceled. After the match in 2013, Johnson was tested for elevated testosterone and the post-fight drug test came out as positive.
Over the course of the years and fights, Brendan beat some serious names such as Matt Mitrione (at UFC 165, on September 21, 2013), Johnny Curtis, Lav Johnson, Alex Rozman, Jay Lester, and Chase Gormley.
Matt Mitrione and Brendan were supposed to face at UFC on Fox 8 on July 27, 2013. The match was rearranged for September 21, 2013.
Schaub defeated Mitrione at UFC 165 in the 1st round via D’Arce choke.
Of course, he couldn’t win all of the contests, there were a few lost ones as well. For example, he lost in the fight against Andrei Arlovski in 2014 (at UFC 174) and Travis Browne on Technical Knock Outs.
In the fight against Arlovski, Andrei won the round via split decision. The match against Browne brought Brendan losing with TKO in the first round. This made Brendan move down to the light heavyweight division after six months.
However, he made a final decision about retirement a couple of months later, on October 12, 2015. That is when Brendan started pursuing his stand-up comedy career, and let us tell you – he did great!
His debut was at Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and the audience simply fell in love with his charm.
After retirement, Brendan released “The Fighter and the Kid 3D” in 2016, a digital download sketch comedy series. He had a podcast under the same name as well.
The same year, in 2016, Brendan launched “Big Brown Breakdown”, a solo podcast focused on mixed martial arts and combat sports.
On the January 30 episode of this podcast, Brendan spoke about the UFC Tonight Fox panel of presenters being selected on Fox panel because of the sake of racial diversity.
Schaub made an effort to start with standup comedy when he performed at The Laugh Factory, The Comedy Store, and Hollywood Improv.
His venues for a world tour in 2017 of New Zealand England, Ireland, and America were all sold out.
This brought Schaub to the center of attention, which gave him an opportunity to be the host of The Kid podcast and the Fighters on FOX Sports.
Brendan worked with Bryan Callen here, and they were podcasting partners for Wilbur Theater of Chicago, Gramercy Theater of New Your City.
Their partnership culminated at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles and the Wilbur Theater in Boston, as the crowds were simply astonished by them both.
The year 2019 started great for Brendan, as he filmed a comedy special “You’d Be Surprised”, his first ever Showtime, which debuted on May 18, 2019.
Comedy Central’s will feature Schaub in “This is Not Happening”, season 6, which starts from June 2019.
Brendan is on the list of famous boxers who amassed a great net worth from their career.
On the other hand, he was hosting the podcast show and did a comedy act besides boxing, which brought him additional revenue.
He co-hosted People’s Choice Awards, The Grammy’s, the Golden Globes, and Academy Awards in 2018.
Speaking of Brendan’s movie career, it all started with “Range 15”, a movie from 2016, which was his feature film debut.
Showtime brought Brendan to be a commentator and to analyze surrounding of the boxing match McGregor/Mayweather in 2017.
Brendan started working as a panelist in 2018 for the Bravo Network and their show “Bravo’s Play-By-Play”.
“The Tax Collector” is the David Ayer movie from 2019 in which one Brendan made his second feature film appearance. All this brought him $3 million net worth.
Personal Life
The fact Brendan is a whole package – he has hot the looks and charisma, which makes females go crazy over him.
Brendan lives in Los Angeles, California, with his girlfriend Joanna Zanella.
She is an actress and a TV host since 2014. Joanna also has her clothing line – Jz. Style, and her business is based in LA. Brendan and Joanna started dating the same year – in 2014.
The couple dated for years when Brendan decided to propose. Their son, Tiger Pax Schaub, was born on February 21, 2016.
Before Joanna, Brendan dated Ronald Rousey, an American mixed martial artist, judoka, and an actress.
There are some rumors Ronda cheated on Brendan with Travis Browne, who had knocked out Brendan in a fight.
On the other side, it is not totally clear if Brendan was cheating on Ronda as well.
They were together for one year and broke up in 2014.
What is more, after their break up, Brendan didn’t say a nice word about Ronda and told that she is too manly, too commanding, and too much of an ego-freak.
Even though Brendan and Joanna are still not married, they are currently big plans for the wedding.
They have been engaged for 2 years now, as Brendan proposed Joanna in 2017.
Seems like Brendan and Joanna are thinking about a low-key wedding ceremony, but we will have to be patient to see what is going to happen.
Speaking of other interesting things about Brendan’s life, he is a big fan of automobiles and fashion.
Brendan got a serious hit from Mirko Cro Cop in one of the matches and ended up with a broken nose.
Because of this, doctors prescribed Oxycontin pills to Brendan, as these were meant for recovery. Instead, these pills made him addicted to them for months.
Quick Summary
Full Name: Brendan Peter Schaub
Date of Birth: March 18, 1983
Birthplace: Aurora, Colorado
Age: 36
Profession: MMA fighter, host, actor, comedian
Height: 1.93m
Weight: 111kg
Net Worth: $3 million