The life of a UFC wife can have many ups and downs

From Las Vegas — Jenny Mir, wife of UFC heavyweight Frank, is sitting on the couch in her home breast-feeding Ronin Maximus, who is beginning a second month of life.

This never happens to me when I'm covering the Dodgers.

Life goes on for a mom of four, though, her husband probably a little more than 24 hours away from being squashed and buried by a human mountain, but somebody still has to give the kids their baths.

It's just never easy. When it came to Friday's weigh-ins at Mandalay Bay, she had someone save her seats so she could stay home as long as possible with the baby before arriving.

The doors closed, though, the crowd too large, so the wife of the guy who is considered one of the main draws for UFC 100 stood outside in the parking lot for almost an hour -- crying.

"The tears were wiped off," she says before meeting up with her husband again, "because he has to fight, and the fight right now is everything."

It's a way of life, Ronin's name meaning "samurai without master," another child named Kage, the shadow warrior rather than another name for an octagon. It's year-round work, "The Art of War" almost a family bible, "all sports," as Frank argues, "a form of war."

"I keep all his shorts with the blood still on them from his fights," Jenny says.

Scoff or laugh, if you want, I already did on your behalf, and she could not understand. "My husband went to battle," she says.

When her husband enters the octagon for UFC 100, the music turned beyond loud, the bright lights overwhelming and everyone going crazy, she will be sitting in a hotel room with the kids playing games.

She will have a phone set to the side, no idea what is happening downstairs, one person assigned the task of texting either, "he won," or "he lost." Then she will be escorted to the locker room to console or celebrate.

"It's just too stressful for me to be there," she says. "And it's not the violence or worrying about him getting hurt.

"It's the anxiety. A day or two before a fight I go to the empty arena and stand in the place where I believe they will have the octagon and picture it all in my mind. He can control what he's doing in the cage, but as his wife, I'm helpless.

"All the music and screaming fans just add to the anxiety, so I didn't go to his last fight and I won't be there for this one. I just know how much has been put into this, the sacrifices, the eight hours of training, coming home to sleep, everything else falling on the shoulders of Mom and wife because that's just the way it is."