SUMMARY
- Reports suggest that Joe Pyfer has already broken Francis Ngannou's hardest punch record.
- In an interview with The MMA Hour, Joe Pyfer discussed the difficulties he faced during his childhood.
Joe Pyfer is an American professional MMA fighter who currently competes in the UFC. The 27-year-old absolute unit of a man competes in the middleweight division of the UFC. Due to his explosive punching power, he has earned the nickname ‘Bodybagz’. The Pennsylvanian fighter has a professional MMA record of 12-2-0 and is currently on a 4-fight winning streak.
Pyfer started competing professionally in MMA in 2018 and has previously fought in the Ring of Combat and Art of War Cage Fighting promotions before finally joining the UFC in 2022 through Dana White’s contender series. He might have lost his first fight in the premier MMA promotion, but ever since he has gone on to dazzle the world with his dominant performances.
He has won all of his last four fights inside the octagon in under two rounds or less. There is just something special about the power Joe Pyfer possesses. Reports even say that Joe Pyfer has already broken Francis Ngannou’s hardest punch record. Apart from that, Pyfer also has quite the grappling pedigree, which makes him a very well-rounded fighter and a menace to deal with inside the cage.
Who are Joe Pyfer’s parents?
Behind the tough exterior of Joe Pyfer is a man who has been through it all and lived to see the light shine upon himself. In September 2022, Pyfer had an interview on The MMA Hour in which he candidly discussed the difficulties he faced during his childhood.
Amongst everything else, he talked about his relationship with his parents. Joe Pyfer had a very tough upbringing and did not share the best kind of relationships with either his mother or his father. Pyfer had to see his parents go through a divorce when he was 15. And at the time, he sided with his dad. Joe has also mentioned that his father was an oil truck driver in a JRE podcast.
He has even had mental health issues in the past, where during a phase in his life, he was also having suicidal thoughts. While on the topic of his parents, Pyfer said the following about his dad, “I’m not going go into detail of that to that extent, but basically I shoved him, ran out of the house, never went back. And I’ve been discredited from that moment by him ever since then.”
Pyfer then talked about his mother calling their bond ‘toxic’ and ‘dysfunctional’. Explaining his bond with her, he said, “It hurts a lot more than your father. I don’t know why. I guess it’s the emotions that you’re supposed to have with your mom. My mom despised me because I was a spitting image of my dad… They’re not good people.” This begs the question: What did his parents do to him?
Was Joe Pyfer abused as a child by his parents?
Joe Pyfer was indeed abused by his parents as a child. Joe grew up in an abusive household with four sisters. He further talked about his abusive upbringing in a JRE podcast hosted by the UFC color commentator and famous podcaster, Joe Rogan.
On January 18, 2024, the special guest featured on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast was Joe Pyfer. While in conversation with Joe Rogan, Pyfer got candid when he started talking about his abusive father.
Joe Pyfer talked about how his father just used to sit at home and do nothing, while his girlfriend at the time used to do all the work. Pyfer also mentioned that his father later married this woman, whose name isn’t mentioned, who already had two daughters. Joe also said that his father had gotten into an accident as an oil truck driver.
Joe Pyfer said, “The beatings, man, I swear to God, he used to beat me up just to prove that he could beat me and show his girl that he was tough. Like, nobody could f*ck with him type of deal. It got real dark, man, and (he) started like stomping me, like broke my teeth. … And I would curl up. He would punch me like a grown man, but I would curl up he would throw uppercuts.”
During the podcast, even Joe Rogan seemed visibly taken aback by Pyfer’s household trauma. But the one positive thing about Joe Pyfer’s hardships was that they eventually made him a stronger individual.