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Ronda Rousey facing Bethe Correia
The inaugural women’s bantamweight champion of the UFC, Ronda Rousey, recently admitted that she stayed in MMA for too long as an active fighter.
Rousey, 35, competed as a professional mixed martial artist from 2011 to 2016, with a 12-2 record. The judoka also won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
She joined the UFC as the 6-0 Strikeforce 135-pound champion and was promoted to undisputed UFC bantamweight queen. She defended her belt six times in the promotion, stopping Meisha Tate, Cat Zingano y Sara McMann.
However, Rousey’s last two fights were completely different. Holly Holm he took his belt from him at UFC 193 in November 2015 via a brutal KO. And at UFC 207, amanda nunes he stopped her with his punches in less than a minute in December 2016.
That was the last time Rowdy went up to the Octagon. She is now a WWE Superstar who has dabbled in Hollywood and also has a channel YouTube where he posts content such as judo techniques and games.
Rousey said her mistake was to keep fighting ‘for everyone else’
Rousey recently appeared on “The DC Check-In”, a series of interviews on YouTube of the former champion of two divisions of the UFC, Daniel Cormier. And during her conversation, “Rowdy” talked about her wrestling career and told “DC” that she continued to wrestle for too long in an effort to appease “everyone else.”
“I think it was difficult [abandonar] both judo and MMA as everyone else felt like they wanted more from me,” Rousey said via MMA Fighting. “In judo you reach your peak at the age of 20. I got a medal at 21, so I was going to be 25 for the next Olympics. Everyone was like, ‘Oh, this is the time! you will be the first [mujer estadounidense] to win an Olympic gold medal!’ And she didn’t want him anymore, and he couldn’t do it for the others.”
“And I think that’s a mistake that I made with MMA, that’s when I got to that point where I didn’t want it anymore, I kept doing it for everyone else.”
Rowdy said ‘You have to please people’ when you compete at the highest level
Rousey went on to give her point of view, saying that she felt she had to please everyone, from her parents to the fans watching from home. And at times, that is something that appeared as an “obstacle” for Rowdy.
“I think to be at that top level, you have to be a people-pleaser,” Rousey said. “You want to please your coach, you want to please your parents, you want to please everyone watching. And so it’s one of the things that makes you stand out, but it’s one of those things that can be a hindrance a lot of times. And knowing when is the right time to leave has to be your decision because not everyone else will come to a consensus. And no one knows what you’re really going through and what’s really needed.”
“You are like a novelty on television every two months, while that is your day to day and your reality. And yeah, I think setting boundaries with that relationship with everybody else, and not doing things for them and doing things for you, even if they don’t understand you, I think that was the hardest part: letting go of that need to feel understood, because no one ever will.”
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