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Ronda Rousey was one of the biggest names in the UFC until she suddenly wasn’t (making her one of many fighters to befall a similar fate), and she’s decided to shed some light on her decision to retire from MMA while admitting she was previously hesitant to discuss the concussion history that led to her stepping away from the Octagon.
In 2008, Ronda Rousey won a bronze medal in judo while representing the United States at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, and that discipline would serve as the foundation for the MMA skill set she started to build on in the years that followed.
After winning her first three fights as an amateur, she turned pro in 2011 and spent a couple of years with Strikeforce before debuting with a new organization at UFC 157, which marked a meteoric rise to stardom defined by the five consecutive wins she rattled off with the help of her signature arm bar.
Rousey quickly became the UFC’s most (and first) marketable female star, and she was able to leverage her newfound fame into a role in the Entourage movie as well as appearances in The Expendables and The Fast and the Furious franchises.
She was slated to star in a remake of Roadhouse just a couple of months before her showdown with Holly Holm at UFC 193, but her shocking loss to the kickboxing expert marked the beginning of the end.
It took Rousey more than a year to return for a showdown with Amanda Nunes, but she vanished from the spotlight after losing via TKO. She never formally announced her retirement, but it eventually became clear she’d decided to end a career where she’d posted a 12-2 record.
According to ESPN, Rousey recently decided to peel back the curtain on her decision to walk away from MMA, saying she felt like she was in her prime but was unable to overcome the ramifications of the string of concussions that littered the path she decided to take in life:
“I was forced to leave fighting when I was faster, stronger, more skilled and had a better understanding of the art than ever before. It was a really hard decision to understand, one that my body made for me…
So much had to do with having so many concussions when I was in judo before I even got into MMA. I couldn’t talk about it at all when I was doing MMA because it would literally put a target on my head and I might not have been allowed to compete any farther.”
Rousey did pretty well for herself after leaving the UFC (although pivoting to professional wrestling is a someone curious move if you’re worried about your concussion history), and at the end of the day, it’s hard to blame her for prioritizing her well-being in the long term.