Ronda Rousey isn’t expecting any glowing pieces from the MMA media anytime soon.
The former UFC star has found herself back in the headlines recently as she promotes her recently released autobiography, Our Fight. In various interviews, Rousey has spoken of the concussion issues that not only contributed to her infamous loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193, but also led to the end of her fighting career.
Rousey suffered a pair of brutal losses in her last two UFC fights, which led to much criticism from fans and media, something that she hasn’t forgotten.
“It was really disappointing to see how happily everybody turned on me and how people like Joe Rogan, who were crying in the ring about the honor of being able to call my fights, people I considered friends in the media so quickly turned on me,” Rousey said on The Chris Cuomo Project. “I also am kind of grateful for it in a way because it forced me to separate other people’s perception of me from my own perception of myself, which I had realized had really become intertwined when you have that outpouring of love and support from people, it’s like you’re being love bombed by the world. ‘How do I keep this going?’ It was pushing me into a lifestyle that I felt like it was to impress everybody else, like I was pandering to everybody and I was doing things that I felt like other people would think was cool but that I didn’t really enjoy.
“I do not enjoy being paparazzi famous. I hate it. I do not want to be that level of fame, where I can’t have a normal life. I was pursuing that kind of lifestyle because I felt like that’s what I was supposed to do. Being put through that, it really forced me to see that this isn’t real love. This is fake. They don’t actually know me, they don’t actually love me, they don’t actually hate me, this is a reflection of themselves and what they’re going through and what I represent to them.”
Rousey became a major box office draw for the UFC during her time with the promotion from 2013-2016, crossing over to a mainstream audience while delivering highlight after highlight inside the octagon. She successfully defended her bantamweight title six consecutive times, with only one of those defenses taking longer than a round.
Once Rousey lost to Holm though, the decline came quickly. She would fight one more time before parting ways with the UFC and eventually moving into the world of professional wrestling with the WWE. Her time with the WWE featured some magnificent highs, including becoming the first woman to headline WrestleMania, but Rousey has been critical of how her run with the company ended in 2023.
Now that she has come clean about her injuries, is Rousey expecting critics to revise their takes on her history at all?
“The MMA media hates me, it’s fine,” Rousey said with a laugh. “Not a single person has called me or anything like that. They’ve all just doubled down and said that I’m making excuses or lying or blowing things out of proportion, or not giving credit where it’s due. No, I have not. I’ll be waiting for that call forever.”
“I’m not waiting for it and I get that they’re a bunch of assh*les,” Rousey said when asked if she understood where the criticism comes from. “That’s what I get. I get, ‘F*ck you.’ At least I would rather not have those fake friendships in my life. I would rather that those people expose themselves and I don’t leave myself open to them. I would rather cleanse myself of all those fake, superficial relationships than have them still around.”
