Ronda Rousey not too long ago mentioned concussions ended her UFC profession. Now, the previous UFC bantamweight champion revealed her mind was injured heading into her combat with Holly Holm at UFC 193.
In an interview Tuesday with Valeria Lipovetsky, Rousey mentioned she was compromised by a mind damage she suffered main into the 2015 title combat. Consequently, she mentioned she was “out on my ft for your entire combat,” which ended within the second spherical with a brutal head kick from Holm.
“My mouth guard was unhealthy,” Rousey mentioned. “I actually got here into that combat concussed from slipping down some stairs already in spite of everything these years of concussions. Then I had a fully horrible weight lower, which implies you’ve got much less fluid in your mind to guard it.”
“I used to be simply making an attempt to make it appear like I wasn’t damage, however I wasn’t there cognitively,” she added. “I couldn’t assume as quick. I couldn’t choose distance, and simply from that one combat, all people felt like, ‘Oh, she’s a fraud.’”
Rousey beforehand mentioned her historical past with concussions whereas previewing her new autobiography, “Our Battle.” She mentioned she suffered a number of concussions throughout her beginner athletic profession in judo, and he or she continued to endure them throughout her careers in MMA and pro-wrestling with WWE.
In her interview with Lipovetsky, Rousey revealed extra particulars about her knockout losses and her disillusionment afterward with followers and media. She mentioned she obsessed over social media and fought to make followers joyful, solely to see them flip when she misplaced in a comeback combat in opposition to Amanda Nunes in 2016 at UFC 207.
“I do know that I’m the best fighter that has ever lived,” she mentioned Tuesday. “However when it obtained to some extent the place I’d simply taken a lot neurological injury that I couldn’t take it anymore, all of a sudden all the pieces that I achieved meant nothing.
“So then after that second combat, and I noticed how all these those who I used to be coming again to combat for had all of a sudden turned in opposition to me, all of my appreciation for them was resentment, and I simply didn’t wanna have something to do for them and with them anymore. I didn’t wanna do something for them anymore, as a result of I gave them all the pieces that I had, they usually hated me for not with the ability to give them extra.”
A request for remark to the Australian Sports activities Fee, which regulated UFC 193, was not instantly returned.
Rousey’s admissions reveal a spot in oversight among the many majority of athletic commissions that regulate MMA. Athletes are required to undergo the fee pre-fight medical paperwork that features mind scans reminiscent of MRIs, along with present process pre-fight physicals from commission-approved medical doctors. (The UFC additionally collects this pre-fight medical paperwork to undergo commissions with a view to expedite the method of medical clearance.) These alone, nonetheless, can fail to offer a real image of an athlete’s mind well being when evaluated with out the context of earlier scans that will reveal clues as to mind accidents. Even situations linked in some research to long-term mind trauma, reminiscent of cavum septi pellucidi, could not disqualify fighters from combating due to regular anatomical variance between individuals with the situation.
However for Rousey, the choice to not disclose her earlier points got here all the way down to defending her profession and fulfilling her mission to be the most effective fighter on the earth.
“I feel individuals would have thought I used to be simply making excuses, and I couldn’t say something after the primary combat, as a result of I’d actually simply be placing a goal out of my head,” she mentioned. “And after the second combat, I didn’t wish to say something to anybody, as a result of the media had been simply making an attempt to sensationalize all the pieces, and chop all the pieces up right into a headline; they weren’t making an attempt to assist me inform my story, and it’s the sort of factor I feel that might solely have been informed in a ebook. Solely in that lengthy kind, as a result of there was simply a lot that occurred, and a lot that I went into at the moment.
“Then I additionally wished to enter WWE, that they’ve a really difficult historical past with concussions in CTE and issues like that, and in the event that they knew how unhealthy it was, I don’t assume they ever would have employed me. In the event that they knew that I used to be getting concussions from an open hand slap from Stephanie McMahon or Nikki Bella, they wouldn’t enable me to carry out. So I needed to hold this stuff to myself, to maintain my future in my very own fingers, and to have the ability to make my very own choices, as a result of if my coach or [UFC CEO] Dana [White] knew how unhealthy issues had gotten, they might have made me retire, and I wasn’t prepared.”
See Rousey’s full interview beneath.
