Ronda Rousey appreciates that every now and again when UFC starts building a massive card, her name still comes up for a potential comeback.
The latest instance was UFC 300. As the promotion promised the biggest event in history, there were seemingly millions of rumors swirling about what kind of a rabbit Dana White might pull out of his hat. Rousey’s name somehow ended up being mentioned as a candidate, but White admitted very openly that she was never even in consideration because the former bantamweight champion was happy raising her family in retirement.
Despite her last UFC appearance happening almost eight years ago, Rousey enjoys that her name still comes up from time to time, but she promises there’s no chance she’s ever fighting again.
“Every couple years … the same rumor comes out,” Rousey told the Insight podcast. “It’s nice to feel missed, I guess. But it’s not happening. I’m not neurologically fit to compete anymore at the highest level. I just can’t.
“You just get to a level where the neurological injuries you take accumulate over time. They don’t get better.”
As she was recently promoting her autobiography, Rousey said repeated concussions that began when she was still a child played the biggest factor in her MMA career coming to an end. Rousey said she never addressed the situation publicly because she was still actively competing, and even after she left UFC, she didn’t want to potentially risk her future in WWE after transitioning into professional wrestling.
But, she said, eventually the symptoms she suffered as a result of so many concussions forced Rousey to walk away from full-time competition.
“When I got into MMA, I had already had dozens of concussions that I trained through,” Rousey said. “Like, not even stopped for. So that was about a decade of having concussion symptoms more often than not. So when I got into MMA, I was playing a game of zero errors. Then it got to the point where I was fighting more often than anybody. I had more outside of fighting responsibilities than anybody, and it just got to be lighter and lighter hits were hurting me more and more and more.
“I got to a point where I couldn’t take a jab without getting dazed, without getting concussion symptoms. It just got to a point where it wasn’t safe for me to fight anymore. I just couldn’t continue to fight at that higher level.”
Rousey endured her first professional loss back in 2015 when she suffered a brutal head kick knockout courtesy of Holly Holm. That fight cost her the UFC bantamweight title and Rousey ended up sitting out for the next year as she recovered from the loss.
When she eventually came back 13 months later, Rousey lasted just 48 seconds against Amanda Nunes before she walked out of the octagon and never returned to the UFC.
Truth be told, Rousey admits now that she probably should have walked away for good after the loss to Holm, but she just couldn’t let her career end like that.
“It was really tough and I think that’s why I took that first loss so hard, because I knew it was over,” Rousey said. “I knew I’d reached that limit. I was in denial about it and I tried to come back again with a lot of rest and a better weight cut, not doing the extra stuff, the extra press, and just coming in and fighting.
“If I could just cut to that moment when they say go and I fight, I f*cking love that so much. Nothing makes more sense in the world. There’s not a single thing that happens that I don’t understand or that I don’t know what to do.”
Rousey said her problems with concussions followed her into WWE, but she eventually had to say enough was enough. With a growing family alongside husband Travis Browne, Rousey realized she had to put her athletic career behind her or risk permanent damage that she wouldn’t walk away from.
To add to that, Rousey appreciated that she became a role model for young fighters coming up in the sport and she preferred serving as an example to girls following in her footsteps rather than becoming a cautionary tale.
“The men have been around longer so they just have more history of boxing and stuff like that, they just reach their limit of how many hits that they can take and then they start getting knocked out,” Rousey explained. “They start getting knocked out easier and easier, more and more often. Then you see them down the road and they’re having all kinds of neurological issues.
“I just felt it was my responsibility to age gracefully because I’m a representative of my sport. People look at me and think of women’s MMA. If I’m rolling around in a wheelchair, people aren’t going to let their little girls go and do it. You never know when you take one hit too many until decades later. You see these guys who are like punch drunk.”
As much as Rousey loved the support she received from fans, the now 37-year-old UFC Hall of Famer knows attention like that is fleeting and she had to begin thinking long-term as far as her life was concerned.
That’s why she’s so resolved to put fighting behind her for good, no matter how many times she hears calls for a comeback.
“Everyone loves to see you fight when you’re in the cage, but none of those people are going to be there for you down the line,” Rousey said. “You’ve got to take care of yourself and your family and put that first. Because you’re just a passing entertainment to everybody else. You see that in pro wrestling, people get addicted to that applause and they can’t stop, they can’t walk away even when it becomes to their detriment.
“I just had to put my foot down and be like, ‘This has gotten to a point where my brain cannot take anymore and it has nothing to do with how tough I am or anything like that.’ It’s just the way that it is.”
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