Former undisputed bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey has claimed she is still the “greatest fighter that’s ever lived” amid her exit from combat sports back in 2016, revealing numerous details of her losses against Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes prior to her Octagon departure.
Rousey, the inaugural UFC bantamweight champion, called time on her mixed martial arts career following her second consecutive loss via knockout, however, has been continually linked with a stunning return to the sport in the year since her departure.
Mandatory Credit: Jeff Bottari – Zuffa LLC
Turning her hand to professional wrestling under the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) banner in the time since her exit from mixed martial arts, Riverside native, Rousey also departed the former Vince McMahon-led outfit at the end of last year.
And while reflecting on her professional mixed martial arts career ahead of the release of an upcoming memoir, Rousey delved into her deep history with a slew of concussions suffered both in combat sports and judo competition – revealing she didn’t call time on her tenure sooner as to not disappoint fans or UFC CEO, Dana White.
Ronda Rousey labels herself the greatest fighter ever
Labelling herself as the best fighter to ever compete in mixed martial arts, former Strikeforce champion, Rousey also attributed her shocking 2015 knockout loss to above-mentioned, Holm to a badly-fitting mouthguard, as well as a difficult weight cut to 135lbs.
Mandatory Credit: Pat Scala
“My first loss – like, my mouthguard was bad,” Ronda Rousey explained during an interview with Valeria Livopetsky. “I literally came into that fight [with Holly Holm] concussed from slipping down some stairs already, you know, after all of these years of concussions. And then I had an absolutely terrible weight cut. Which, you know, that means you have less fluid in your brain to cut to protect it.”
“And I was out on my feet for the entire fight,” Ronda Rousey said. “I was trying to make it look like I wasn’t hurt, but I wasn’t there, cognitively. I couldn’t think as fast, I couldn’t judge distance, and just from that one fight, everybody thought, ‘Oh, she’s just a fraud’. And I know like, I’m the greatest fighter that has ever lived.”
What are your thoughts on Ronda Rousey’s revelations of her UFC run?
Photo by Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images
Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson is a real thing that’s going to happen.
After back-to-back “legitimate” boxing opponents, Paul will take on his third in the form of the legendary Tyson. The only problem is the age gap, according to recent backlash.
Tyson will be 58 years old by the time his matchup happens with “The Problem Child” inside AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Tex., on July 20. Paul, 27, last scored first-round knockouts over Andre August and Ryan Bourland. The name value was a massive drop-off from his previous bout with former UFC welterweight Nate Diaz, or any previous. Tyson feels the numbers speak for themselves and doesn’t see his age as an issue ahead of the clash.
“I’m 58 and what? I’m getting billions of views from just talking to somebody about fighting,” Tyson told Reuters. “Everybody, even most of the athletes, they’re jealous, that’s whack… I say in your prime you couldn’t draw a million people, man. What are you talking, you couldn’t sell out arena. Who at 58 could sell out an 80,000-seat arena?”
While Tyson sounds like he’s taking a page out of ONE Championship’s book with that comment, it’s still more realistic…
Paul won’t be Tyson’s first fight since his pro career ended with a loss to Kevin McBride in 2005. It’s yet to be announced whether or not Paul vs. Tyson will be a pro or exhibition bout, but “Iron” last competed when he took on fellow legend Roy Jones Jr. in their November 2020 exhibition. The bout was ultimately scored a split draw despite many believing Tyson bested his counterpart.
Paul vs. Tyson still feels like we fell into some alternate reality. Either way, it will be a spectacle, at the very least, and both parties are aware of it.
“Why you think he wants to fight me and not anybody else?” Tyson said. “Everybody wants to fight him, all the boxers want to fight him. But if he fought them the only people that will come are the people that like him.
“The other guys, their parents might not even come watch them. That’s just keeping it real. They’re too boring for their children to watch, it’s like watching grass grow.”
TOP STORIES
Business. UFC owners at Endeavor sold to private equity firm, TKO remains publicly traded
Compromised. Ronda Rousey: I was concussed before fighting Holly Holm at UFC 193
Intense. Ian Machado Garry vows to knock Colby Covington ‘unconscious and leave you in a puddle of your own blood’
Hero. Mark Coleman to be guest at UFC 300 after surviving house fire: ‘I’m the backup for every fighter’
Concern. Sean O’Malley reacts to Sean Strickland’s mental health issues, suspects too much sparring is root cause
Anticipation. Robert Whittaker on Khamzat Chimaev challenge: I ‘look to take him to war’
Prediction. Deiveson Figueiredo aims to knock out ‘mentally fragile’ Cody Garbrandt at UFC 300
Warrior. Jim Miller remembers near-retirement at UFC 200: ‘I had made the decision to walk away’
Fouls. Matt Brown blames UFC gloves, not Chris Weidman for eye-poke controversy: ‘When are we going to fix these goddamn gloves?’
VIDEO STEW
MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz chats with Ian Machado Garry.
UFC 200 Watch Party.
Sound & Pound.
Gaethje vs. Holloway preview.
PFL Fight Week.
Mohammed Usman fight day with Kamaru.
LISTEN UP
Heck of a Morning. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck discusses the fallout of super weird UFC Atlantic City event.
MORNING MUSIC
Go to Twitter, use the #MorningReport hashtag, or find one of my tweets with it, and drop me a jam you’re currently really into. I’ll pick the best one alongside my daily choice and give you a shoutout! You can also share in the comments below — those are just harder to sift through sometimes!
SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
Next?
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A post shared by Dricus du Plessis (@dricusduplessis)
Volunteer.
Put me in coach! I’m in Vegas and I can make the weight @danawhite @seanshelby @ufc https://t.co/eTxOOc2xFR pic.twitter.com/jl6R0VjaTW
— Vince Morales (@vandetta135) April 2, 2024
Discipline.
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A post shared by Alexa Grasso (@alexa_grasso)
Spongey.
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A post shared by Jessy Jess (@missjessyjess)
The Diego one, man.
Missed strikes but they get increasingly clumsy pic.twitter.com/xs5nrPOses
— Miguel Class (@MigClass) April 2, 2024
Good game.
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A post shared by Dustin Poirier (@dustinpoirier)
Return.
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A post shared by Germaine de Randamie (@ironladymma)
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Matheus Nicolau (19-4-1) vs. Alex Perez (24-8); UFC Vegas 91, April 27
Khaos Williams (14-3) vs. Carlston Harris (19-5); UFC Vegas 92, May 18
FINAL THOUGHTS
Well, at least Mike is self-aware.
Thanks for reading!
EXIT POLL
If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @DrakeRiggs_ on Twitter and let him know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Instagram and like us on Facebook.
Deiveson Figueiredo | Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Cody Garbrandt was knocked out four times over a span of four years between 2017-21, amounting to a 1-5 UFC run. Deiveson Figueiredo wants to add to that at UFC 300.
Figueiredo, the former UFC flyweight champion who was victorious in his bantamweight debut over Rob Font this past December, said on MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast that Garbrandt is not mentally strong enough to deal with any in-cage adversity.
“We see he’s mentally fragile,” Figueiredo said of April 13 opponent. “He doesn’t have a good head. We see he hasn’t come back after having a few losses, right?”
Garbrandt claimed the UFC bantamweight title in 2016 with a masterful performance over 135-pound legend Dominick Cruz. Then, he suffered three knockouts in a row in bouts with T.J. Dillashaw (twice) and Pedro Munhoz.
“No Love” rebounded with a first-round victory over Raphael Assuncao before losing to Font and Kai Kara-France in 2021. Now Garbrandt enters UFC 300 finally on a roll against after wins over Trevin Jones and Brian Kelleher, but Figueiredo likes what he sees on tape.
“Every athlete fears getting touched,” Figueiredo said. “Many fighters like the in-fight but crumble when a hand lands. You have to be a badass, you need a strong mind to come back again. I think I’ll affect his mind by touching him, and he’s going to respect me more.”
Figueiredo and Garbrandt were booked to face off in a 125-pound contest back in 2020, back when “Deus da Guerra” held UFC flyweight gold, but Garbrandt suffered an injury while training for what would’ve been his flyweight debut.
Now meeting at 135 pounds, Figueiredo said he feels much better cutting less weight and vowed to go for Garbrandt’s head at the T-Mobile Arena.
“I really want the knockout in this fight,” Figueiredo said. “This fight could lead me to a title, so I want to impress. It’s going to be an incredible fight. Cody moves a lot and gives his all in the first round, and I have that same aggressive style. It’s going to be an intense fight.”
The Brazilian talent inked a new six-fight deal ahead of UFC 300, and feels he can finally be more active inside the cage now that he’s done with his hard weight cuts.
“Cody is an excellent athlete, and we’re both former champions,” Figueiredo said. “I feel healthy in this division, and I was able to show that in my first fight [against Font]. He didn’t feel healthy at the time [at flyweight], and now we’re going to fight. I’m going to his division, where he feels better, and we’ll put on a great fight. I’m sure fans will love this fight.”
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Welcome to Midnight Mania!
It’s been just over seven years since Ronda Rousey stepped away from combat sports.
The Olympic gold medalist in Judo took the MMA world by storm, capturing the Strikeforce and then UFC women’s Bantamweight titles as an undefeated submission ace. She defended her UFC belt six times, all via stoppage and rose into the public eye as a result. Rousey was on top of the world prior to being upset by Holly Holm, then it all fell apart. She returned a year later, was knocked out once more by Amanda Nunes, and left the promotion for good.
Recently, Rousey has been doing the media circuit to promote her new memoir, Our Fight. A big reveal has been Rousey’s history of concussions, which really plagued her later career. In the interview above with Valeria Lipovetsky, Rousey talks about her health struggles and reflects on her abilities while at her peak.
“I felt like I had to come back for another fight, I felt like I owed it to the fans and everyone who believed in me,” Rousey began. “Maybe I needed to give them an example of overcoming adversity. It was to the point where the next fight when I got touched, I was out on my feet. It was so hard because I’d never been faster, stronger, never had a better grasp on the game. I’d never been so much better than everyone else. But, your brain doesn’t callous, it doesn’t help back stronger after a break. It was an inevitable decline.
“I had taken punishment until I couldn’t take it anymore. When it got to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore, I was vilified as ‘She was all hype, she was just lucky.’ People making all these judgements about me in a fight where my first loss, my mouth guard was bad, I literally came into that fight concussed from slipping down some stairs already after all these years of concussions. I had an absolutely terrible weight cut, which means you have less fluid in your brain to protect it.”
She continued, “I was out on my feet for the entire fight. I was trying to make it look like I wasn’t hurt, but I wasn’t there cognitively. I couldn’t think as fast or judge distance. Just from that one fight, everybody felt like, ‘Oh she’s a fraud.’ I know that like I’m the greatest fighter that has ever lived, but when it got to a point that I had taken so much neurological damage that I couldn’t take it anymore, suddenly everything I had accomplished meant nothing.”
She concluded, “Then after the second fight, I saw how all these people I was coming back to fight for had suddenly turned against me. All of my appreciation for them turned to resentment.”
Since retiring from MMA, Rousey has performed as a professional wrestler in the WWE. She was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2018.
Insomnia
If you’ve been wondering why certain physiques and certain gas tanks are looking better in 2024 …
Today marks the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Per UFC Anti Doping, there’s been 639 drug tests performed in the first 3 months of the year.
USADA carried out 1,096 in the same timeframe in 2023.
That’s a 42% reduction in drug testing of fighters under the new regime.
— Andy Hickey MMA (@AndyHickeyMMA) March 31, 2024
Merab Dvalishvili doesn’t come to mind as a great analogue for Xiaonan Yan, but I bet his wrestling pointers are helpful!
Merab Dvalishvili training with the all mighty Zhang Weili ⚔️
( : @MerabDvalishvil) pic.twitter.com/YRAOPiwBXD
— COMBAT SPORTS TODAY (@CSTodayNews) April 1, 2024
Sitting here, still wondering what exactly knocked out Andre Petroski. Jab, hip, or heel?!?
| Andre Petroski claims that his strange finish loss to Jacob Malkoun last weekend, was a result of Malkouns heel landing flush on his throat.
Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya face off | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Dricus du Plessis wants Israel Adesanya in Australia.
Multiple reports indicate the UFC wants du Plessis vs. Adesanya to headline the promotion’s return to Australia at UFC 305. On Tuesday, du Plessis responded to those rumors by calling out “The Last Stylebender.”
“Looks like someone wants another beating in Aus.
“I’m in, I also wouldn’t want to fight the king of Africa on home soil. Manifestations working good for you AGAIN!
A post shared by Dricus du Plessis (@dricusduplessis)
In January, du Plessis won a split decision over Sean Strickland to claim the UFC middleweight title at UFC 297. After the win, he called for a fight with two-time champion Adesanya at the upcoming UFC 300 card. A du Plessis injury ultimately rendered that impossible, but the South African champion didn’t give up on the matchup.
While the fight is still far from being official, Adesanya has also made known his desire to fight du Plessis, and he reportedly is open to the UFC 305 booking.
Du Plessis and Adesanya have a long-standing rivalry that dates back to when Adesanya was the middleweight champion and du Plessis called him out, saying he would be a true African champion and bring the belt back to Africa, instead of to New Zealand. This kicked off heated animosity between the two, and it appeared they’d settle their differences at UFC 293 in Sydney. Instead, du Plessis was unable to fight on that timeline.
Sean Strickland then stepped in at UFC 293 and upset Adesanya, leading to the eventual title fight between Strickland and du Plessis. Almost a year later, Australia may get the original title fight it was promised.
UFC 305 takes place Aug. 18 at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.
Ian Garry is enjoying his time in Sao Paulo after securing his seventh straight victory under the UFC banner and 14th overall in February.
The Future’ once again lived up to his moniker, scoring a split decision victory over welterweight staple Geoff Neal at UFC 298. As a result, Garry slid into the No. 7 spot in the 170-pound rankings — three spots behind his next target, Colby Covington.
Speaking with MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz, Garry made it clear that a clash with ‘Chaos’ is on the agenda for UFC 303 when the promotion returns to Las Vegas on June 29.
“Look, if Colby wants to fight in his back garden tomorrow, I will fly to Miami and fight him in his back garden,” Garry said. “I don’t care when it is. I just want him as the opponent. I want him to be a man and step into the Octagon and face his fears. Face the man who he’s talked a lot of sh*t about, and watch what happens when you get in there. God will be good. He will give me Colby Covington whenever, wherever I want him, and he will say, ‘Ian, have fun.’”
Covington last competed in December, coming up short against reigning welterweight champion Leon Edwards at UFC 296. Since then, the three-time title challenger has been relentlessly targeting Ian Garry and his wife, Layla Machado Garry, in a series of NSFW videos and social media posts.
“I want to fight him because of the following he has, the respect on his name as one of the better fighters in this division and has been for a long time,” Garry said. “I want to fight him because of all the sh*t that he has talked about me and my family, and I’m going to make sure that he regrets every word he’s said.
“But I also know that even if it was the best Colby Covington we ever seen, he would never stand a chance against me. No matter how good Colby Covington ever could be or would be, he would never be able to beat me. I’m too elite. I’m too fast. I’m too technically brilliant. He just doesn’t stand a chance. I don’t think the guy deserves any respect in the world, to be honest with you. The sh*t he talks … I’ll step into that Octagon, and I’ll retire him. That’s my goal. My whole goal to when I fight Colby Covington is that he never puts on MMA gloves ever again.”
Ian Garry Determined to retire Colby Covington in Potential Octagon clash
Now training at Chute Boxe in São Paulo, Ian Garry would love the chance to fight in the Land of the Holy Cross, but he simply can’t see Colby Covington accepting the invite, particularly after ‘Chaos’ made an enemy of the entire country during his clash with Demian Maia in 2017.
“I don’t think Colby Covington wants to come back to Rio after all the sh*t he said last time he was in Brazil versus Demian [Maia],” said Garry, referring to when Covington defeated Maia in Brazil and then slammed the country during his post-fight speech. “I think he’ll stay away. I think he’d end up dead.
“That’s the truth, I think he’d end up dead. I think there’s no way that happens, because Colby is too much of a b*tch. But I will fight in Brazil one day, and I will be so happy to put on the yellow shorts and be the main event in Brazil, and I’ll carry the Irish flag on one shoulder and the Brazilian flag on the other.”
With Garry and Covington trading barbs since late last year, everything is seemingly teed up for the UFC to take advantage of the intense situation and book the welterweight grudge match for later this year. Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen. But if given the opportunity, ‘The Future’ has every intention of retiring Colby Covington emphatically.
“You don’t deserve to be here,” Garry said. “You don’t deserve to be at the top of the division anymore. I’m going to retire you. All of Brazil is going to have a smile on their face when I knock you unconscious and leave you in a puddle of your own blood, face down on the canvas. Colby, you’re done. Fala tchau. [Say bye.]”
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