Netflix’s debut MMA event was indeed the Ronda Rousey show. Tasked with fellow pioneer Gina Carano, Rousey needed just 17 seconds to apply her patented armbar and secure a quick victory Saturday in her first — and last — fight in nearly 10 years.
Rousey, 39, got the job done in the same manner as nearly all of her previous 12 wins. The performance snapped the former UFC champion’s two-fight skid, which started with her stunning title loss to Holly Holm in 2015. And for Rousey, who’d long been soured on MMA following the messy end to her UFC run, the experience of her comeback prompted a profound shift in the way she see the sport in which she made her name.
“I feel like a ghost was banished,” Rousey said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “It’s just lifted a weight off of me that I didn’t realize I was still carrying in that way. This is exactly what I needed, and that was closure.”
Retiring undefeated was Rousey’s biggest goal upon her arrival in MMA. For a time, she appeared destined for that reality, with each win seemingly arriving quicker than the last. And while that run may have ended at unlucky No. 13 against the aforementioned Holm, Rousey now believes it was all for the best. That’s partly thanks to her experience in pro-wrestling, which she transitioned into after leaving the UFC in 2017.
“This is much better than retiring undefeated,” Rousey said. “I didn’t really learn until I went into pro-wrestling and saw that if you retire with the title, you take all of that equity with you, and it would have been to the detriment of the division if I did that. I think that’s part of one reason why the 145-pound division is gone in the UFC, because it retired with Amanda [Nunes,] and I think it needs to be passed on.
“That was a really selfish goal for me to have, and I’m glad that my equity was able to live on past me and to give credibility to the division, and if I retired undefeated, I would have taken the credibility with me. So, it was the best thing for the sport.”
As easy as the fight looked for Rousey after another quick night of work, getting to fight night may have been the real battle.
Rousey, 39, revealed that she badly sprained her foot and ankle just two and a half weeks ago. It was difficult to look fully healthy during Wednesday’s open workouts, Rousey said, and the pre-fight promotional festivities only aggravated her injury, making hiding a limp at weigh-ins a real struggle.
“[My mom] said, ‘If you’re going to get hurt on the most important day, you could get hurt on the day of the Olympics, or you could get hurt when it really matters, and you need to know that your body listens to you, not the other way around.’ I was like, ‘Man, thanks for the trauma, mama,’” Rousey said with a laugh, recalling a childhood story in which her mother, AnnMaria De Mars, made her run laps after breaking her toe in judo practice.
“Right when [the injury] happened [before the fight], I was like, ‘Well, looks like I’m doing this with my ankle messed up.’ But I’ve basically never had a fight where I wasn’t injured in some way. I didn’t ever pull out of a fight because I’d never been injured; I just never pulled out of a fight because I always fight anyway. So, that’s just part of it, and when it happened, that is just part of it, and I’m the f***ing best at this. I pushed through.”
Rousey seemed to be the perfect foil to promote an event like Saturday’s. Her motivation had an anti-UFC flare, igniting competitive spirits. So while the all-time great is sticking to her guns about having fought her final fight, that doesn’t mean she can’t still be a part of operations on the business end of Jake Paul’s potential promotional push into MMA.
“We’ll see how tonight did, and if they want to continue. I’ll see what kind of role they would have in mind for me and if that fits with my plans for the future,” Rousey said.
“It’s interesting. I don’t know if I can really commit to it because I don’t really know exactly what that would entail. How much they would want me to be around, how much they would want from me. But it would definitely [be an option] if it could somehow fit with my time with my family. We’re going to be moving to Hawaii, so it depends on how much of a time commitment they would need from me, but if there’s a way to make it work, I would be open to figuring something out.”