Ronda Rousey reached the head in UFC and WWE however had an unceremonious exit from each organizations. It seems an undisclosed historical past of concussions abruptly ended her run with every promotion.
The previous UFC ladies’s bantamweight champion left the promotion in 2016 following consecutive knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes. Her swift break up from combined martial arts and dismissive angle in the direction of her UFC tenure soured followers who perceived her as bitter. In response to Rousey, it was her “concussion historical past” predating her MMA run that had her tight-lipped.
“I needed to maintain [it] secret for years, so I’d be capable to proceed to compete and carry out,” Rousey informed followers on Instagram Stay whereas teasing content material from her upcoming memoir, Our Combat.
“I believe that there was simply a lot to [that Holm loss], that I could not discuss it within the type of like an interview or an article or something like that, or there can be a number of filters between my phrases and folks studying it. A lot needed to do with having so many concussions after I was in judo earlier than I even bought into MMA, I could not discuss it in any respect after I was doing MMA. As a result of it would actually put a goal on my head, and I may not have been allowed to compete any additional.”
Rousey’s concussions performed a direct function in ending her legendary MMA profession.
“That is principally why I needed to retire,” Rousey stated.
Rousey stored the concussions below wraps even after she retired from fight sports activities. It was a calculated threat to afford her a second high-profile profession. Rousey made sporadic appearances for WWE beginning in 2014 and signed onto the corporate full-time in 2017. Her time in skilled wrestling led to 4 championship reigns, changing into the eighth ladies’s triple crown champion and profitable the 2022 ladies’s Royal Rumble match.
“Similar factor with WWE,” Rousey stated. “They’ve an advanced historical past with their performers getting concussions, and it might be a foul look on them. So I felt like I actually could not discuss it in any respect. So I really feel like this [is the] lengthy kind that I’d be capable to adequately deal with it.”
Rousey had a quiet departure from WWE after shedding an “MMA Guidelines” match to her longtime good friend and fellow UFC alum Shayna Baszler at SummerSlam in 2023. She subsequently wrestled two matches elsewhere — together with one in Ring of Honor — teaming with MMA fighter-turned-pro wrestler Marina Shafir. Rousey subsequently retired for the second time.
“A very onerous determination to grasp, however one which my physique actually made for me,” Rousey stated. “I really feel like that is the one method to actually get that throughout in the most effective, most full means that it isn’t only a tweet and a headline brief.”
Rousey’s autobiography Our Combat can be launched on April 2.
