Roxanne Modafferi spent September 2003 to June 2004, her junior year, in Tokyo, Japan. This enabled her to compete in a number of NHB and BJJ competitions. But After her TUF 18 and UFC gig and after many years being away, Modafferi went back home to the US.

Although Modafferi believes that the move was important to her career, she understood that it would be difficult.

She said "Yeah, it was extremely difficult. I loved my life in Japan, but I had to tackle this opportunity while I could."

She adds "Many of my friends had been telling me to move back to the U.S., that the training here was the best. But I chose not to believe that. After TUF, where we were treated so specially, and taken care of by the coaches, I could see what they were talking about. It took me over the course of the TUF season, so about six weeks, to make the decision. On the day we left, I looked over to Jessamyn Duke - who had been telling me to come back to the States - and I said, 'I'm moving back.'"

Modafferi first lived in Japan being a college student. From then on, she has inched her way to become a fighter. During her transition to the US, she had to make changes to her training and her lifestyle as well.

She said "I had planned to stay in Japan for a very long time, at least until my mother got older and would need me to help her out."

She continued " There have been a lot of adjustments to make. I did visit America twice a year while I lived in Japan, so it wasn't a complete culture shock, but I had never lived as an adult in the United States, so there's so much I wasn't used to. My mom tried to catch me up on things, to be careful of. Just things like fraud, and how you have to chop up your bank statements, and have to be more careful. In Japan, you can walk down the street with your wallet hanging out of your pocket and no one is going to rob you. In America, people tell you to not carry cash, to not even speak your bank account number over Skype, it's almost annoying (laughs)."