'I'm not Carole Baskin!' UFC pinup Paige VanZant performs DROWNING stunt with MMA fighter husband (VIDEO)

In an unusual new twist on a relationship that has produced a stream of raunchy selfies during the coronavirus lockdown, MMA pair Paige VanZant and Austin Vanderford have toyed with death by testing their strength in a bathtub.

In a video posted to Instagram, Vanderford admitted he had decided to test whether VanZant would be able to drown him, as he had often wondered whether his fighting wife would be capable of murder if she became angry while he was relaxing during their nightly bathtimes at their home.

The unbeaten Bellator middleweight insisted he was “not making light of anything” as wife VanZant, who loves shooting and hunting alongside training for flyweight fights, tried to stop him from surfacing for air from the edge of the tub while he went underwater.

“I truly wanted her to give it 100%”, said Vanderford, risking a premature end to his preparations for the Submission Underground card at the end of the month.

“Is there any possible way she could hold me underwater and kill me? I genuinely was curious if my wife had the physical capabilities of drowning m3."

VanZant, who was confident she could kill her husband in a challenge she called "weird", placed one hand on his forehead and one on his throat.

"It popped into his head,” she said.

“Sometimes it's just nice to know that you're incapable of being harmed. It's comforting.”

The pair seemed baffled that their latest clip together, which deviated from the semi-naked shots their vast combined following of on Instagram have often seen during quarantine, had been picked up by media reports.

"People hate us,” VanZant joked to Vanderford in a follow-up story to her audience of around 2.5 million, assuring people that she held no parallels with Carole Baskin, the zookeeper who was suspected by a global audience of killing her husband after being portrayed in Netflix documentary Tiger King.

“I did not try to kill my husband," she said.

"I am not Carole Baskin!

"He was fishing me, throwing bait out and asking, 'Honey, do you think we could do this, or am I too strong?’”

Vanderford has been training in a home gym with the fighter he calls his “biggest fan”.

He explained: “I do go underwater a lot to wash my hair, get the soap off, and it’s always in the back of my mind.

“I think, ‘Man, what if Paige was really pissed off at me today, tried to hold me underwater and all that?’ But we found out.”

VanZant revealed her opponent for her final fight of her current UFC deal earlier this week, announcing that she will face Brazilian Amanda Ribas on July 11 in a rescheduled contest at an unconfirmed venue.