Ronda Rousey

[Jimbo]

We'll see how this turns out. Right now, Asuka arguably is the most hard-core wrestler in WWE's women's division. They've had Asuka go literally undefeated for all 2.5 years she's been with the company so far. I predict that WWE will make Ronda the first woman to beat Asuka, as long as she can deliver convincingly in the WWE ring.

Pro wrestling is known to cause more physical injuries and chronic pain than pro MMA fighting. Plus, they're performing all the time.

[GeneChing]

Pro wrestling is known to cause more physical injuries and chronic pain than pro MMA fighting. Plus, they're performing all the time.

Pro wrestling falls under 'entertainment' so it's not bound by the same regulations that any large sport must abide. This includes mandatory time off after concussions or similar injuries and drug testing.

[GeneChing]

CRIS CYBORG
I'D FIGHT RONDA ROUSEY IN WWE
7/24/2018 12:10 AM PDT
Cris Cyborg Says She's Open To Fighting Ronda Rousey In WWE
EXCLUSIVE

GIVE 'EM WHAT THEY WANT
TMZSports.com
Ronda Rousey vs. Cris "Cyborg" Justino -- the super fight that never happened -- could still be a possibility ... just not in the UFC.

TMZ Sports talked to Cyborg at the airport in L.A. on Sunday ... and asked her about the possibility of finally facing her rival after years of trash talk ... and battling Ronda in the WWE.

"Some fans ask me, 'Cris, do you like to make a fight with Ronda Rousey in WWE?'" Cyborg tells us, "I say 'Maybe, ya don't know. Maybe.' It's not something I plan. But if fans would like to watch, I need to train for that, but, ya know, it's gonna be great."

Cyborg was actually complimentary of Ronda ... telling us she's seen Rousey do her thing in the WWE ... and thinks she's kickin' ass in the squared circle.

"I watch a couple things Ronda's doing there, and I think she's doing great."

Justino also breaks down her plans to box in the future ... and explains why Conor McGregor is a trailblazer.

THREADS:
Christiane "Cyborg" Justino
Ronda Rousey

[GeneChing]

[GeneChing]

THREADS
Tables
Ronda Rousey

[GeneChing]

Can't say I blame her. I mean, after you've starred in epics like Tables above, and Charlie's Angels, why bother with the octogon?

Ronda Rousey says fighting in UFC is no longer a priority, calls herself the greatest of all time
Chris Cwik Yahoo Sports Jan 30, 2020, 1:19 PM


Ronda Rousey says she's the greatest to ever do it. (Photo by Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

Ronda Rousey isn’t motivated to return to UFC any time soon. In a wide-ranging video on her YouTube channel, Rousey talked about fighting no longer being “a priority in my life.”

Rousey, 32, also claimed she’s the GOAT of women’s MMA.

Rousey talks about her desire to return to fighting around the 14:40 mark.



After talking about being sad watching older fighters still get into the cage, Rousey reflects on her priorities and legacy in the mixed martial arts.

“There’s not a day that goes by that people aren’t telling me to fight. And I have to kind of think of it as, would I rather be the greatest of all time or have everybody think I’m the greatest of all time. And it used to be so important for me to have both. But now it’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to sacrifice myself and my family to prove that anymore to a bunch of people who don’t give a s--- about me.”

Because of that, Rousey says fighting is “no longer a priority in my life.”

She later expands on her thoughts about being the GOAT.

“It was actually my husband who taught me I’m so much more than just a fighter. I don’t have to fight myself into the ground to prove that I’m the greatest of all time when I already know that I am.”

Opinions will vary on whether that’s actually the case. Over her first 12 matches, Rousey was undoubtedly one of the best — if not the best — to ever do it. Losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes in Rousey’s final two fights, however, hurt her legacy.

No matter where you fall in that debate, there’s no doubt Rousey played a pivotal role in putting women’s mixed martial arts on the map. People took a much larger interest in the sport because of her.

Whether that’s enough to make Rousey the greatest of all time is up for debate. At the very least, she’s in the conversation.

[GeneChing]

‘Rowdy’ Ronda Rousey reportedly ready to leave WWE behind for return to the Octagon at UFC 300
By Craig Pekios - Aug 27, 2023

Ronda Rousey may be ready to pack away her wrestling boots and once again strap on the four-ounce gloves for a return to the Octagon in 2024.

After years away from the MMA game, ‘Rowdy’ may be looking for a comeback as the UFC closes in on its 300th event next year. That is according to an anonymous source close to the current WWE Superstar. In an interview with DailyMail, the source claims that Rousey is looking to finish up her commitments with the sports entertainment behemoth and is strongly considering a UFC return.

“She just had a match at Summerslam and is looking to wind down her time and commitments with the WWE and she is now focusing on potentially making a run to have one last fight in the UFC and compete at UFC 300 when that presents itself sometime next year,” the source said.

They also added that Ronda Rousey is “at a current crossroads in her life and career as she is looking to see what she might want to do next.

Ronda Rousey Reportedly Ready to Add Another Addition to Her Family

Ronda Rousey has not competed inside the Octagon since suffering back-to-back knockout losses against Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes. Prior to that, ‘Rowdy’ won 12 straight, all by way of finish with 11 coming in the opening round. After her first-round loss to the ‘Lioness’ at UFC 207, Rousey walked away from the sport and ultimately signed with WWE shortly after.

In 2021, Ronda Rousey gave birth to her first child, La’akea Makalapuaokalanipō Browne, with husband and former UFC standout Travis Browne. Anyone who follows her on social media knows how important being a mom is to the former bantamweight world champion. So much so that she is reportedly interested in adding another bundle of joy to her household.

“She really wants to do it all [career-wise], but in the next few months don’t be caught off guard that she is having another kid because that is something she feels is one of the most important things to happen for her again,” the source added.

Dana White recently debunked Ronda Rousey’s rumored return for UFC 300 next year, but it wouldn’t be the first time the UFC President has flat-out lied to protect some of the promotion’s impending surprises. And with Amanda Nunes no longer terrorizing the bantamweight division, there is no better time for ‘Rowdy’ to step back into the cage.


Craig Pekios
Craig Pekios is a freelance writer born and raised in Bettendorf, IA. Joining LowKick MMA in May 2022, Craig has more than 2,500 articles published that focus on the world of mixed martial arts and boxing, including news, event previews, results, analysis, and op-eds. Aside from working with LowKick MMA, Craig has contributed to news outlets Overtime Heroics, Sportskeeda, and MiddleEasy.

I kinda enjoy her WWE fights more than her UFC fights. They are wackier.

[GeneChing]

Ronda Rousey: ‘I never wanted to talk about concussion. It felt like a weakness’
Donald McRae
The former MMA fighter, once described as ‘the world’s most dominant athlete’, reveals her fears for the future after a career riddled with glory and pain
Donald McRae
Sun 31 Mar 2024 03.00 EDT

‘I worry about it because we already have Alzheimer’s and dementia in our family, and those family members did not get whacked on the head a whole bunch,” Ronda Rousey says as she considers a future shrouded by the consequences of concussion and a past where she broke so many barriers for women before a shattering fall.

At her peak, in 2015, Rousey was described by Sports Illustrated as “the world’s most dominant athlete”. She had changed a brutal sport to become the face of the UFC, the billion-dollar juggernaut which drives the popularity of Mixed Martial Arts.

Apart from being the first woman signed by the deeply conservative UFC in 2012, Rousey had built a formidable 15-0 record in which her bouts lasted an average 34 seconds. But her ferocity was built on a hidden vulnerability. Rousey had suffered so many concussions in judo that she knew her brain could not withstand multiple more blows to the head. It was vital that she brought her fights in the UFC to a violent conclusion before she absorbed much punishment.

Rousey can now share her secret and is moving and amusing company as she reflects on the consequences of so many concussions. “Every time I forget my keys or lose my phone, I’m like: ‘I’m DYING! It’s OVER!” she says as she shouts out those words with comic flair.

She has just turned 37 and Rousey is thoughtful again. “Part of me has declined and I have moments where I’ll be singing my daughter a lullaby and I’ll get a word wrong. I’ll be like: ‘Oh my God! This is it [the onset of dementia]!’ On the drive home this morning, after dropping off my daughter for her first day of pre-school, I was passing corners I’d passed hundreds of times and, for a moment, I was like ‘Where am I?’ And then it’s a case of ‘Oh yeah’.”


Ronda Rousey launches an attack on Sarah Kaufman during the Strikeforce event in 2012. Photograph: Esther Lin/Forza LLC/Getty Images
We all have moments of brain-fade but, for Rousey, it carries a tangled undertow. Her new book, written with her sister Maria Burns Ortiz, is often gripping and, at its best, offers a raw personal history of concussion. She began judo at the age of 11 and, driven by the aim of winning an Olympic gold medal, Rousey tried to evade the fact “I’d been compounding concussion after concussion for so many years”.

She shrugs when I ask how many concussions she might have had in a calendar year as a young woman. “It’s hard to say because I wouldn’t rest when I had a concussion. I would continue to train and keep re-aggravating it. So instead of having symptoms for a few days, I would have them for weeks or even months. Most of the year I would be having concussion symptoms. There are grades of severity but my worst was being thrown on the back of my head at the Pan-American [Judo] Championships in Argentina. I completely blacked out till the next morning.”

Rousey’s concerns were ignored. “I’d be treated like I was complaining about a headache. People would say: ‘Your head hurts? Suck it up. What if your head hurts during the Olympics?’ That’s how I was taught to deal with it from a very young age. It became a way of life.”

Her mother, AnnMaria [Burns], had become the first American to win the world judo championships in 1984. She then lost her husband, and Ronda her father, after Ron Rousey took his life. Ronda was eight years old. Amid such adversity, AnnMaria began coaching Ronda and helped her win a gold medal at the 2004 World Junior Judo Championships and bronze at the 2008 Olympic Games.

When Ronda was a girl, there was little scientific knowledge about concussion in the public domain. “My mother just didn’t understand concussion,” she says. “Nobody did because research only started coming out towards the end of my judo career. I was afraid of it and tried to suppress it. I’d had so many more concussions than anybody else in a 10-year judo career and so when I started doing MMA I didn’t want anyone to know. They already had enough reasons to try and stop me going into MMA and then the UFC. I didn’t want to give them any more about concussion and I was lucky to have the skills to win most fights really quick.” Rousey is suitably scathing about the ignorant machismo that haunts MMA and boxing: “People talk about your ‘chin’ with such reverence. It’s thrown around like it’s a personality trait or a sign of your willpower to absorb blows. That’s another reason why I never wanted to talk about concussion. It felt like it was a personal weakness and not a neurological degeneration I’ve been experiencing since I was a child.”


Ronda Rousey (blue) on her way to beating Germany’s Annett Boehm in their women’s -70kg judo bronze medal match at the 2008 Olympic Games. Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images
She pushes her glasses higher up on the bridge of her nose. “It sucks because you see what happened to a lot of these fighters. Muhammad Ali is one of my heroes and he had the greatest chin. But look what happened. I am not judging anyone as I would also accept living my life in a wheelchair if that was the price I had to pay to achieve all I did. I respect Ali for being willing to live that life because that’s something I tried to do as well.

“I hope I don’t end up that way but you never know. It might be decades later when you understand you’ve taken one hit too many. When you have kids and family, it’s much harder to gamble on your future. I went from being the most eligible bachelorette on earth to instant family, and it completely changes your priorities.”

Rousey experienced a whirlpool of fame which she has now gladly exchanged for a serene life on a regenerative farm she runs with her husband Travis Browne, the former UFC fighter, who has two teenage boys. The couple have two young children of their own and, surrounded by family and animals, Rousey has found a way to heal herself after the catastrophic end to her UFC domination.

The most powerful pages in Rousey’s book document the aftermath of her crushing first defeat when the former boxer Holly Holm knocked her out in front of the UFC’s then largest-ever crowd of 56,000 fans in Melbourne, and more than a million people who had paid to watch the broadcast in November 2015. Holm’s first punch concussed Rousey. It also split the champion’s lower lip wide open.

At the end of the round, Rousey bit off a small chunk of distended flesh, “ripping my teeth into my own lip like you would an apple”, and spat it out. She still feels the missing part of her inside lip today and remembers the desolation of her locker room after being knocked out in the second round.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Ronda Rousey is on the canvas after being knocked out by Holly Holm in their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout in 2015. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images
Rousey “sat alone on the cold, grey concrete floor” and “tears ran down my cheeks”. She was barefoot, silent and shivering. “I could taste the blood in my mouth, my tongue against a gaping hole of flesh and muscle where my inside bottom lip had once been.”

She could hear people outside revelling in her devastating defeat. “It was the worst moment of my life. It was the most intense pain, misery, embarrassment and shame I had ever felt. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to swallow a bottle of painkillers, close my eyes, and end it.”

Only one man could talk properly to her. Travis found the words as, while she sobbed in his arms, he reminded her: “You are so much more than a fighter.”

Rousey had been venerated for so long and pressured into fighting for the UFC so often. But after that defeat and another early stoppage loss to Amanda Nunes in December 2016, Rousey was ridiculed relentlessly in a defining example of social media’s desire to destroy a famous figure as they stumble. She finally found a way out of such distress. It helped that Rousey knew she had to protect her brain and no longer risk being punched or kicked in the head. She also tells me how, with patience and humour, Travis showed her how to live normally again.


Ronda Rousey with husband Travis Browne. Photograph: Eric Williams
“He was one of the very few people who saw me as more than just Ronda Rousey, the UFC champion. Here’s a perfect way to sum up Travis. When we first got together I told him that there was no way I was ever going to cook for a man. So for a year he cooked every single meal we had together because he loved me. Then one day I said: ‘I can make really nice pancakes. I want to make you some pancakes.’”

Rousey laughs in delight. “So I started making pancakes and then more and more meals. I wanted to show I loved him by cooking for him, as he had done for me. And then he did this really smart thing. He changed the voice on the GPS so that it had an Australian accent. It was because he didn’t want me to have any bad association with my defeat in Melbourne. To this day we still hear an Australian voice on our GPS.”

In California they have “our regenerative ranch where we started with one seed and we now have hundreds of acres of grassland”. “We’re figuring out how to use our animals and natural processes to bring this ecosystem to its fullest potential. We now have herds of antelope coming through and roe deer and migrating geese. We’ve taken this land that was so neglected and abused and made it a real refuge for all the wildlife in the area as well as raising our animals humanely so they can exhibit all their natural behaviours.

Regenerative agriculture is one of the most scalable solutions to combat climate change. I really believe in it
“We could have taken the money we made from fighting and put it into property and just been landlords. But I don’t want to leave our kids a pile of money that’s on fire because the world is burning. Regenerative agriculture is one of the most scalable solutions to combat climate change. I really believe in it.”

Rousey worked for a while as a wrestler in the WWE and she quickly discovered that, even in that circus, women were treated badly. But she is proud of how she changed combat sport and made women fighters integral to the business of the UFC. “I tried to win as quickly as possible, taking zero damage and I’m really proud of what I was able to accomplish – especially with my limitations.”


She has also found peace even if she cannot be certain of the future health of her brain. “I need to enjoy the moment and be happy where I’m at,” Rousey says after an hour of sombre reflection and riotous laughter. “I don’t want my body to be perfect when it’s buried in the ground.

“I have no regrets and if I get to a point where you can just park me in front of the ocean and all I can do is sit and watch the whales, I should be happy with that. I would do it all again, but I wish I could do it with a little more science and knowledge in mind.”

Our Fight by Ronda Rousey is published on 4 April by Century Books

Anyone planning on reading this?