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 girls’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 perspective in direction of her UFC tenure soured followers who perceived her as bitter. Based on 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 of proceed to compete and carry out,” Rousey instructed followers on Instagram Stay whereas teasing content material from her upcoming memoir, Our Battle.
“I believe that there was simply a lot to [that Holm loss], that I could not speak about it within the type of like an interview or an article or something like that, or there could be a number of filters between my phrases and folks studying it. A lot needed to do with having so many concussions once I was in judo earlier than I even bought into MMA, I could not speak about it in any respect once I was doing MMA. As a result of it would actually put a goal on my head, and I won’t have been allowed to compete any additional.”
Rousey’s concussions performed a direct function in ending her legendary MMA profession.
“That is mainly why I needed to retire,” Rousey stated.
Rousey saved the concussions underneath 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, turning into the eighth girls’s triple crown champion and successful the 2022 girls’s Royal Rumble match.
“Identical factor with WWE,” Rousey stated. “They’ve an advanced historical past with their performers getting concussions, and it might be a nasty look on them. So I felt like I actually could not speak about it in any respect. So I really feel like this [is the] lengthy kind that I’d be capable of adequately handle it.”
Rousey had a quiet departure from WWE after shedding an “MMA Guidelines” match to her longtime pal 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 laborious resolution to grasp, however one which my physique actually made for me,” Rousey stated. “I really feel like that is the one approach to actually get that throughout in the very best, most full means that it is not only a tweet and a headline quick.”
Rousey’s autobiography Our Battle will likely be launched on April 2.