This Saturday will mark the end of Ronda Rousey’s nine-plus-year hiatus from mixed martial arts, and if all goes as planned, it will mark her farewell.
The 39-year-old is perhaps the greatest female MMA star of all time, and she’s giving fans one more show as she will face fellow legendary fighter Gina Carano at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, with the help of Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions.
“Yeah, I’m excited. It’s finally, like, super real,” Rousey told Fox News Digital. “At first, we were training in secret for, like, a year. It was really more like a year and a half at this point, but at least over a year. And now it’s kind of really bittersweet that it’s coming to an end. I’ve been having such a great time. This camp has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life.”
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Rousey, the first woman signed by the UFC who became a Hall of Famer in 2018, retired in 2016 after six successful UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship defenses before entering WWE full-time. Rousey’s MMA record got off to a 12-0 start before she lost her final two bouts to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, respectively, and nine of Rousey’s 12 victories came within the first 70 seconds. All but one victory was in the first round.
It’s no secret that Rousey is out of her prime, but this camp “hasn’t felt like a grind at all.”
“We made joy a priority — actually enjoying the process instead of just hoping enjoyment would come along the way,” Rousey said. “Before, everything was so result-oriented. Now, it’s about the process. And once we made that shift, ‘Let’s make this as fun as possible,’ I started getting better results than ever. I feel better than I ever have, physically and mentally.”
“I used to be very much in that old-school mentality of, you have to suffer and make yourself miserable in order to be the best you can be. And now it’s like, no, I realize it doesn’t have to be that. I can enjoy this as much as possible, and it makes me the best that I can be. Because I already know that I’m a bada–. I already know that I can dig deep. I’ve already paid all those dues, I’ve done all of those things. So I think just making it fun… good vibes only, it’s all about me, there’s none of this other stuff going on around me, no superfluous noise.”
So, why come back in the first place?
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“Gina, that’s the reason,” she said.
“I was sitting nine months pregnant, about to pop, in an office chair. I saw her at a low point, losing her bodily identity and being really unhealthy. And after seeing Mike Tyson come back at nearly (age) 60 and be the most-viewed combat sports event of all time, I knew there was a huge demand out there and that these showcase fights were the future of combat sports.
“When I saw where Gina was at, and I looked down at my big belly, where I was at, I was like, ‘You know what? A fight between us would be huge not just for the world, but for each other.’ And I think this is what combat sports needs. This is what we need. And just like she inspired me to do MMA in the first place, she’s the one who inspired me to come back.”
Rousey said she “promised my husband and swore up and down to my sister” that this is her final fight. Knowing it’s a farewell after nearly a decade out, all of the emotions are in play.
“That fluttering in the chest, that nervousness, I know that’s what happens when I’m about to do great things. I don’t become afraid of my own anxiety or my own fear, in a way. I wouldn’t even label it like that. I’m not afraid of how my body reacts to those things, because I know that’s what it does before I do something great. I perform above myself when I’m under a huge amount of pressure. So when I feel those symptoms of that pressure, I don’t shy away from it and get scared of it.
“It’s more like the launch sequence before the rocket blasts off.”
As much fun Rousey has had, there is still a goal – winning. Admittedly, “if there’s anyone on this earth who I would be okay with taking my happiness and running around with it, it’s Gina,” Rousey said.
“Because she’s the only person in women’s MMA that doesn’t owe me a damn thing—and that I owe immensely,” she added. “And if this is the only way that I can give back to her—to give her the comeback story of a lifetime—I owe everything, all the prosperity in my life, to her. If that’s the way that it has to go, then that’s the way that it has to go.”
But it won’t be easy.
“She’s going to have to pry victory from my cold, dead fingers. Because I want to show her the monster that she created. And I want her to be proud of me,” Rousey said.
“I want me beating the s— out of her to actually be the greatest compliment I could ever pay her.”
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