Former UFC champion Ronda Rousey has never been one to hold back, but her recent criticism of Joe Rogan has raised eyebrows across the combat sports world.
During an appearance on Bert Kreischer’s Bertcast podcast, Rousey took an unprovoked shot at the longtime UFC commentator, calling him “a fan with an audience” who has “never fought” in MMA rather than a true expert. The comment left Kreischer, a close friend of Rogan’s, visibly uncomfortable.
However, unearthed footage from Chris Cuomo’s podcast, which aired a year before her Bertcast appearance, reveals the deeper story behind Rousey’s lingering resentment. During her conversation with Cuomo,
Rousey opened up about feeling betrayed by media figures she once considered friends, specifically naming Rogan among those who “turned” on her after her devastating losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
“It was really disappointing just to see how happily everybody had turned on me,” Rousey told Cuomo. “People like Joe Rogan who were crying in the ring out of the honor of being able to call my fights—people that I considered friends in the media—so quickly turned on me.”
The emotion in her voice was palpable as she described the sudden shift in public perception following her knockout loss to Holm in 2015.
What makes this revelation particularly significant is that Rousey wasn’t just upset about losing fights. She disclosed to Cuomo something she had kept secret for years: the cumulative effect of concussions had made it physically impossible for her to continue competing at the highest level.
“I had so many concussions as a kid,” she explained. “By the time I got into MMA, any kind of significant strike would make me see stars, give me photo vision, headaches—different kinds of concussion symptoms.”
Rousey described how two weeks before the Holm fight, she slipped down stairs, knocked herself unconscious, and tore her knee. She entered that pivotal bout already concussed, with improper equipment, and struggling with severe weight-cutting issues. The first time Holm struck her, all her bottom teeth were knocked loose. “I was completely out on my feet,” she recalled.
The fighter said she couldn’t reveal her condition at the time because she didn’t want WWE, where she planned to continue her career, to know about her concussion history. This silence allowed critics like Rogan to speculate about her mental toughness and skill rather than understanding the physical reality she faced.
“I also am kind of grateful for it in a way because it forced me to separate other people’s perception of me from my own perception of myself,” Rousey told Cuomo, though she admitted the experience was “alienating and isolating.”
She noted pointedly that after her recent revelations about her concussion history, “not a single person has called me or anything like that. They’ve all just doubled down and said that I’m making excuses or lying.”
The timing of Rousey’s criticism of Rogan on the Bertcast—a full year after the Cuomo interview—demonstrates she hasn’t forgotten who stood by her and who didn’t. While Rogan famously praised Rousey during her dominant championship run, calling her one of the greatest fighters of all time, his tune changed after her losses, analyzing her technical deficiencies and questioning her coaching.
Rousey, who hasn’t competing since 2016 and has been open about the lasting effects of her concussions, has firmly dismissed any comeback rumors. Now focused on her family and her regenerative agriculture business, she appears content to let her grudges simmer while building a life centered on what she calls “real validation instead of outside validation.”
When asked by Cuomo if any of her former media friends had reached out to correct their assessments, Rousey’s answer was blunt: “The MMA media hates me. It’s fine. No, not a single person has called me.”
