In an interview on Breakfast Club Power, Ronda Rousey laid out exactly why negotiations with TKO Group fell apart for her proposed comeback match against Gina Carano.
Rousey said the idea first came to her while she was nine months pregnant, after watching the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul match become the most viewed combat sports event of all time. Seeing where Carano was at personally and professionally pushed her to act.
“Nine months pregnant, I gave Dana a call and I was like, ‘Hey, what do you think about this fig ht?'” she told the hosts, recalling how she reached out to Dana White directly. While White was fully on board with the idea, she suggested the broader TKO organization was a different story.
According to Rousey, the core issue ultimately came down to how the UFC currently gets paid under its broadcasting model.
“Since they were switching over to the strea ming model, they didn’t want to set the precedent of giving us the guaranteed money that we deserve,” she explained, adding that executives feared “everybody else after that is going to be able to demand more.”
She went further, outlining what she sees as the structural problem with the lump-sum arrangement between the promotion and its broadcast partners.
“Right now the strea ming model, they get a lump sum of money up front from like Paramount and it’s in their best interest to actually spend as little as possible,” she said. Under that system, she argued, promotions lack motivation to invest heavily in marquee matchups. “They don’t get any incentive putting on events that get more views and bigger stars and bigger paydays for the athletes.”
Rousey also pointed to the publicly traded nature of TKO as a factor that limited flexibility during negotiations.
“Because they’re a publicly traded company, they’re legally obligated to maximize shareholder value,” she said, arguing that this reality shapes how pay is handled. “And that entails squeezing the athletes as much as they can. And they didn’t want our rising tide to lift all the boats.”
With the UFC unwilling to meet their financial terms, Rousey ultimately partnered with Jake Paul at Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) and Netflix to self-promote the match entirely outside the UFC’s structure. She framed the decision as being about more than just her own payday, positioning it as a potential turning point for fighter compensation across the sport.
“This match is going to change the trajectory of the sport forever,” she said. “It’s going to give the athletes more opportunities and more revenue share than they’ve ever had before.”
Rousey has made clear that this will be a one-bout return, specifically to face Carano, honoring promises she made to her husband and family that it would be her final appearance.
