After Saturday night, whether Amanda Nunes is successful in beating the greatest female fighter of all time or not, she and fiancee Nina Ansaroff will hop in their brand new RV and hit the road.

They won't have a destination in mind. This is by design. Nunes and Ansaroff, who is also a UFC fighter, will hit the open road and see where it takes them, trying to leave the violence and the intensity behind. They're confident they'll be dragging along a brand new piece of gold and leather hardware after Nunes' fight against Cris "Cyborg" Justino at UFC 232, but the baggage isn't the point.

The destination, or rather the lack of a destination, is what it's all about. It's about putting some land and miles between them and the bright lights, and about getting back to basics.

It has always been like this for Nunes and Ansaroff. Maintaining a relationship is hard enough for the rest of us; when both of your day jobs involve inflicting physical pain on other humans, the value of separation, of a life outside of work, becomes even more important. It isn't the difference between life and death, but it can be the difference between sanity and alternative options.

The first time Ansaroff laid eyes on Nunes, she was coming out of the bathroom at the gym, brushing her teeth. That's not how most love stories start off, but there you have it. Nunes was living at the gym because she had nowhere else to go, and even if she did have a place to go, she had no money to pay for it. So Amanda would clean the mats after practice each night and then, once the last of her teammates had exited the front door, she would fall into a tiny space that had become the only home she could afford.

Which is why Nunes was brushing her teeth the first time Ansaroff saw her: She'd been using the gym bathroom every morning.

"She was coming out of the bathroom and had her toothbrush stuck in her mouth," Ansaroff says. "It was...something."

But of course, Nunes has her own take on how that moment when down.

"No, no! She said, 'Oooh, I love that girl. She's so beautiful, I wanna marry her,'" Nunes responds in a sing-song impersonation of her partner.

"You didn't even speak English!" Ansaroff retorts, all while Nunes continues chortling and cooing in the background.

This is how it goes now, but in those early days, both were cautious. Ansaroff, sensing how bad things were fiscally for Nunes, started buying her food. She felt bad for the pretty girl living in the gym and wanted to help, but she didn't have any sense of anything that might be coming down the road. And because this is a love story, before either of them knew it, they'd fallen for each other.

Today, they are inseparable and no longer cautious. If one is fighting, the other is not fighting; it is too hard for them to imagine doing it any other way, because each needs the other to be there for them when they are at their weakest, as well as at their most victorious. For Ansaroff, it's impossible to consider fighting in the same week as Nunes because her mind is too wrapped up in taking care of her fiancee, who cuts so much weight when competing at bantamweight that it's a constant concern for those around her.

"She gets so skinny," Ansaroff says. "I get worried about her. I check her in the middle of the nights sometimes just to make sure she's breathing."

They manage Amanda's burgeoning stardom the same way any other famous couple does, even working through the requisite jealousies that arise when a female fan wants to snap a selfie with Nunes in public. This is part of being famous, Ansaroff will tell herself, but all the while her hackles are raising and she's resisting the urge to take a swing at the ones who get too handsy with the love of her life.

"I'm telling you," Ansaroff says. "I'm about to punch them in their face."

When they go back to Amanda's hometown in Brazil, they tend to stick to the places where she grew up so as to avoid the perils that come with being a famous fighter in a country where famous fighters are revered as national heroes.

And it is those old places that remind Amanda of her childhood, when she spent hours riding horses in the green, gorgeous countryside. She thinks about those days often because they never really go away. She wants to buy a new horse someday. What would it be like to just get away from it all, to not be recognized, to never have to take a photo with a fan again, to never have someone needing something from you? She would be free—and that's kind of the point of the RV, in a way. It wasn't cheap, but it was their ticket to brief glimpses of a life outside the fast lane.

Today, things are different than those early days back in the gym. Nunes isn't hurting for money, and neither is Ansaroff. Both women are successful UFC stars, but with a win on Saturday night over Cyborg, anyone who seriously follows mixed martial arts would be hard-pressed to call Nunes anything but the greatest of all time.

How Nunes went from brushing her teeth in the gym bathroom to being in that conversation isn't all that different from most MMA champions, if we're being honest. She started her career with a loss and never really made an impact until she obliterated former champion Miesha Tate to capture her first belt. Less than six months after defeating Tate, Nunes delivered her defining performance against Ronda Rousey, securing a TKO victory in less than a minute.

That was the night the rest of the world first looked at Nunes a little differently. She went from journeywoman to "Holy crap, did you see what she did to Ronda Rousey?" in the blink of an eye. It was enough to send Rousey to the safer and still-lucrative pastures of professional wrestling.

Saturday is a task of a different measure, of course. Justino, who has become one of the few to transcend even her own name and earn the right to go solely by her nickname, is unquestionably the most feared female fighter the world has ever seen. While Rousey made her name carving through opponents with speed, skill and submissions, Cyborg has spent her time detonating a path of destruction largely using her fists and her unbelievable power.

Nunes sent Tate and Rousey scrambling toward retirement, sure, but Cyborg has made a whole string of opponents decide that perhaps this whole fighting thing is not for them. Gina Carano? She was the darling of the MMA world, but she never fought again after losing to Cyborg by TKO in 2009. All of that wanton, blunt-force trauma has a way of striking fear in the heart of an opponent.

Nunes is different. It's not that she claims to not be scared, because all of Cyborg's opponents say they aren't scared, but you can see it in their eyes. They are terrified, and who could blame them? Cyborg is actually the nicest human being you could ever meet, but in the cage, she's a terror. Her opponents are often beaten mentally before they even stand toe-to-toe with Cyborg.

With Nunes, the only thing you see in her eyes is a strange mixture of fire, confidence and a sly glint that makes you think she knows something the rest of us are not privy to. "She is easily the most dangerous opponent Cyborg has ever faced," Ansaroff says. "Most of those girls were 135-pounders coming up taking on a much bigger girl. Or they were 145-pounders who had no business being in the cage with her.

"Amanda is a legitimate 145er," she continues. "And without a doubt, this win will make her the greatest female fighter of all time."

"She's never fought a champion like me," Nunes says, and she has a point.

It's not her fault, but most of Cyborg's career has been made up of facing women brave enough to give up an enormous weight advantage to Cyborg, or the dregs of a thin featherweight division that only exists in the UFC to give Cyborg a place on pay-per-view.

But Nunes has been a featherweight before, and though she has plied her trade 10 pounds lighter for the majority of her career, there is no doubt she'll be comfortable in the Octagon. Yes, she'll give up weight to Cyborg, but most people would against a fighter who likely gets up near 170 pounds by the time she walks in the cage. And Nunes also won't have the hellacious weight cut she normally endures. Which means she should enter the fight far more fresh than she usually does.

And perhaps most importantly, Nunes will have Ansaroff in her corner, as she always does. It gives her the kind of confidence a lot of Cyborg's prior opponents are lacking, a confidence born of peace and understanding.

"I know everything that is going through her head," Nunes says. "She is not going to break me. She breaks every fighter she faces, but she is not going to break me."