UFC President Dana White on Ronda Rousey’s future as a fighter: ‘I think she’s probably done’
Not much has been heard from former UFC champion Ronda Rousey since she lost to Amanda Nunes in December. But UFC President Dana White has talked to her recently, and he said Tuesday that the star fighter is in good spirits after her second straight loss following a 12-0 start to her MMA career.
That said, though, White went on to say we may never see Rousey in the Octagon again.
“If I had to say right here, right now — and, again, I don’t like saying right here, right now ’cause it’s up to her and her thing — but I wouldn’t say she fights again,” White said on the UFC Unfiltered podcast. “I think she’s probably done. I think she’s going to ride off into the sunset and start living her life outside of fighting.”
A 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in judo, Rousey was the UFC’s first women’s bantamweight champion, a title she successfully defended time and again in dominant fashion. Even before her first career loss, to Holly Holm in November 2015, Rousey had been planning to take time off from fighting.
And now, White said, she might be ready to make it a permanent move.
“She’s so competitive that her career record meant everything to her.” he said. “And then once she lost, she started to say to herself, ‘What the … am I doing? This is my whole life — this is it? I want to explore and start doing other things,’ and that’s what she started to do.”
White added that he thinks Rousey might want to move from her home in Venice “to a more desolate place and do her thing,” and that’s fine with him.
“I’m happy for her, man,” White said. “She came in [and] she changed the world. She put female fighting on the map. She’s been part of the biggest fights in the history of women’s fighting.”
Twitter: @chewkiii
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