Despite her hasty and unofficial retirement from the UFC, Ronda Rousey remains the sport’s biggest female superstar to date, standing tall over ‘The Lioness’ Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko in terms of popularity. Her charm and persona during the height of her career were truly unmatched, and now, ‘The Rowdy’ has come out with a new revelation.
Joining Chris Van Vliet in his studio, Rousey explained why her unprecedented departure from the promotion might have been the perfect silver lining for young upcoming fighters. She said, “Retiring undefeated would have been such a selfish goal to be able to accomplish because I would have taken all that equity with me and no one would have respected the rest of the women that I left behind.”
According to Rousey, retiring undefeated with the belt would’ve been simply selfish, as she would have held up the division without letting other competitors climb the ladder. More importantly, it wouldn’t have earned her any respect, which the fighter prioritizes over anything. Following her back-to-back losses to Holly Holm and then to Amanda Nunes in 2016, Rousey left the UFC, never to return, focusing her efforts on professional wrestling in the WWE.
Furthermore, the former women’s bantamweight champion also opened up about her MMA career and poured cold water on her potential return to the cage, revealing her inadequacy. Despite the ever-persistent rumors of her UFC comeback, Ronda, during the same conversation with Chris, shut the doors on her UFC return. She revealed that her time with the UFC is long gone, and she is “not neurologically fit to compete anymore at the highest level.” According to her, she has taken a lot of damage, and her time as the face of women’s MMA is done and dusted.
