Like it or not, Ronda Rousey really may have struggled to evolve as a fighter thanks to the tiring schedule she kept as one of the faces of the UFC during her peak.
That’s according to recently retired UFC legend Matt Brown, who has been both a fierce advocate as well as a critic of Rousey in the past.
Recently, UFC CEO Dana White claimed that Rousey’s inability to keep up with her competition at the end of her career was largely due to her commitment to building the sport, which allowed her opposition to spend all their time preparing for her. Rousey effectively agreed with White, stating that during her UFC career she had to be “everything to everyone,” and as a result, “I had to promote as hard as I trained.”
While he never reached her same level of star status, Brown headlined more than a few events in his day, and he knows the commitments put upon a main event fighter can’t even compare to the workload Rousey carried at the peak of her career.
“He’s not wrong in saying that,” Brown said of White’s comments on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I do have some sympathy for that. She put a heavy load on her shoulders. It came out of nowhere that she wasn’t necessarily asking for, wasn’t necessarily expecting. I do have some sympathy for that personally, or at least empathy. I don’t necessarily feel bad for her for that. I think a lot of that is truthful.
“That started getting to her head. She’s out promoting all the time. Look, when I would a do a media tour or do a lot of interviews leading up to a fight, I would use that as a mental reinforcement. They’d ask questions, and I would say positive things over and over, because you get a lot of the same questions. You use that as a reinforcement. I believe she was probably doing that. But she was saying things that were beyond truthful, which is fine to say it, but she actually started to believe it. She’s doing so much media, repeating that over and over again in her head, then she started to believe it.”
Perhaps the biggest burden that fell on Rousey came closer to her fights when she really ramped up her UFC commitments, which usually included interviews, appearances, and other promotional obligations.
As much as that may have prevented Rousey from training at the same pace as her opposition, Brown also points out that UFC’s push helped transform her into a superstar.
“UFC was probably making her do about double, if not triple the media her opponents were doing,” Brown said. “So leading up to the fight, she’s bearing all the responsibility of the media and her opponents are training. Maybe that’s problematic. But that’s also their job.
“That’s the UFC. They’re a promoter. That’s what they do — promote you. That’s literally their job. They made her a lot of f*cking money. They made her a superstar.”
Brown says the reality of Rousey’s situation isn’t just a right or wrong answer, because both things can be true when it comes to her rapid rise and fall in the sport.
If not for the way she promoted herself and UFC, Rousey may have never become the biggest draw in the sport alongside Conor McGregor. On the flip side, Rousey’s time spent shouting from the rooftops may have stopped from her really grinding in the gym, where she had the chance to become a better fighter.
That’s why Brown backs the argument that Rousey probably suffered as much as she gained from her superstardom, but White bringing it up now isn’t doing her any favors.
“Every reason turns into an excuse when you’re a fighter,” Brown said. “You don’t need to bring it up. I could give you a million excuses for every loss I got. You don’t need to bring it up. It’s valid. It’s legit. It might be an actual reason, but again, when she says it, it turns into an excuse. It’s a valid reason. I’m not going to lie.”
Still, Brown watched enough Rousey fights to know that as dominant as she was at her best, she still had some fundamental flaws in her game that were eventually going to be exposed.
Whether she was doing non-stop media to promote the fight or spending every waking minute in the gym, Brown believes Rousey was still destined to lose to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes in her final two UFC appearances.
“I think even if she got to train fully, I think her losses — like, Holly Holm is still beating her,” Brown said. “I called it before the fight. I was one of the few people that won money on that fight. She’s still not beating Amanda Nunes. You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. Again, it’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s also an easy out.
“Ronda was the Royce Gracie of women’s MMA. Royce came back, got his ass kicked by Matt Hughes. The sport wasn’t even very evolved at that time, just like women’s MMA. She came back and fought Amanda Nunes. This women’s sport is still evolving. It is what it is.”
