Las Vegas, NV — It’s been two years since Alan Jouban last competed in MMA, but that doesn’t mean he’s not keeping busy.
Over the years, Jouban has worked as a model, and has more recently made a smooth transition to a broadcast career, working the desk at multiple UFC events. At the 14th Annual World MMA Awards, he was on hand to present the Ring Card Girl of the Year category — which, if the genders were swapped out, he might have been up for himself.
Jouban’s modelling career began while he was still fighting, something that dogged him a little early. Like female fighters sometimes get now, Jouban was thought of as too handsome to fight.
“For me personally in the beginning of my career, that was absolutely a thing. Because every time I would do my walkout, the story when I’m walking out to the arena was ‘this guy doubles as a model, this this and this,'” Jouban recalled, speaking to Cageside Press. “And I’m like ‘man have you looked at my highlight reel? I’ve been knocking everybody out!’ And so that was something in the beginning where I go ‘man, shut this up.'”
Things changed when he made it to the big show, where added exposure paid off in his second career. “And then I get to the UFC, and I embrace it, and I end up getting work. My agency saw me on TV fighting, they booked me, and I ended up doing a Versace job and all this. A bunch of things came from it. I learned I just have to embrace it.”
As it happens, his agency signed another top UFC star, Luke Rockhold. But Jouban is never far from fighting, and like everyone else, there are bouts he’s excited for heading into 2023. “Obviously the fight this weekend that should have happened, the rematch,” suggested Jouban, alluding to the rematch between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira, should the Czech get back from injury in time.
“Dustin Poirier, the hometown guy, the Lafayette guy,” was another name Jouban is excited for. “He’s a guy that as of lately, it’s been in the news— obviously every fighter says they want to chase the belt,” noted Jouban. But, he added, when they get in fights so big that they don’t even need to be belt chasing to sell PPVs or put butts in seats, like Poirier and Michael Chander — “Chandler’s another guy that’s getting to that status” — that’s all the more reason to look forward to them fighting.
The recently victorious “Wonderboy,” fresh off a win over Kevin Holland, is another name Jouban is excited for. Especially in fan-friendly striking match-ups.
“I think that’s something we’re seeing kind of evolve as of late. Fans want to see great fights, they want to see bangers, they want to see fights that you know are going to be non-stop action. And I think we probably have a couple of those coming up, like you said, next year.”
Watch our full interview with Alan Jouban above.
