Former UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey revealed that she had a brain injury going into her fight with Holly Holm at UFC 193 and that concussions ended her UFC career.
Ronda Rousey, the ex-UFC bantamweight champ, recently dropped a bombshell. She confessed that concussions ended her UFC career. More shockingly, she admitted to suffering a brain injury before her fight with Holly Holm at UFC 193.
In a recent chat with Valeria Lipovetsky, Rousey spilled the beans. She revealed that a pre-existing brain injury compromised her during the 2015 title fight. Consequently, she was “out on my feet for the entire fight.” The fight ended in the second round with a brutal head kick from Holm.
“My mouth guard was bad,” Rousey admitted. She entered the fight concussed from a fall down some stairs. This was after years of enduring concussions. A terrible weight cut compounded the problem, leaving her brain with less protective fluid.
“I was just trying to make it look like I wasn’t hurt,” she added. But she wasn’t there cognitively. Her thinking was slow. She couldn’t judge distance. After that fight, everyone labeled her a fraud.
Rousey has a history with concussions. She discussed this while promoting her new autobiography, “Our Fight.” She suffered several concussions during her amateur athletic career in judo. The trend continued in her MMA and pro-wrestling careers with WWE.
In her chat with Lipovetsky, Rousey opened up about her knockout losses. She spoke about her disillusionment with fans and media. She obsessed over social media and fought to make fans happy. But they turned against her when she lost a comeback fight against Amanda Nunes in 2016 at UFC 207.
“I know that I’m the greatest fighter that has ever lived,” she said. But when the neurological damage became too much, everything she accomplished meant nothing.
After her second fight, she saw how fans turned against her. Her appreciation for them turned into resentment. She felt she had given them everything and they hated her for not being able to give more.
The Australian Sports Commission, which regulated UFC 193, did not immediately return a request for comment. Rousey’s admissions reveal a gap in oversight among the majority of athletic commissions that regulate MMA.
Athletes must submit pre-fight medical paperwork to the commission. This includes brain scans such as MRIs, and pre-fight physicals from commission-approved doctors. However, these alone can fail to give a true picture of an athlete’s brain health.
For Rousey, she chose not to disclose her previous issues. She wanted to protect her career and fulfill her mission to be the best fighter in the world.
“I think people would have thought I was just making excuses,” she said. She didn’t want to say anything after her fights. She felt the media was sensationalizing everything. They weren’t helping her tell her story.
She also wanted to go into WWE. But they have a complicated history with concussions and CTE. If they knew how bad it was, they wouldn’t have hired her. She had to keep these things to herself, to keep her destiny in her own hands.
Check out Rousey’s full interview below.