Ronda Rousey isn’t backing down from her GOAT claim, and has concerns over the state of women’s MMA today.
Rousey is an Olympic medalist who is appropriately credited for changing the game when it comes to women’s MMA, recently labeled herself as the greatest of all time. The first-ever UFC women’s bantamweight champion defended her crown six times from 2013-15, carrying the torch for women in the promotion.
However, after losing her title to Holly Holm and then failing to reclaim gold against Amanda Nunes in her final two fights, the floodgates of negativity were opened.
“I said the other day that I’m the greatest ever and man, everyone flipped the f*ck out over it,” Rousey said on “Bertkast” with Bert Kreischer. “I’m like, how do you define the greatest ever? I define the greatest ever as the person who was the most dominant, and the farthest ahead of their time, right? Because you can’t judge different eras against each other. You can’t judge Lebron (James) against Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is the greatest ever, I would say, because of the affect that he had on culture, how far ahead of his time he was, and how dominant he was.”
There’s no denying Rousey’s dominance during her title reign. The UFC Hall of Famer was such a force that Dana White backtracked on his infamous “women will never fight in the UFC” stance. Five of her six title defenses ended in the opening round – three of those under a minute. Rousey’s run was short in hindsight, but her aura as an untouchable champion was very real during that period, allowing her to become one of the sport’s biggest crossover stars.
“No one can say I haven’t been the most dominant and the most ahead of my time, and I will die on that hill,” Rousey said. “But a bunch of people that have never been in a fight in their lives will devote a good portion of their day to arguing otherwise. But the good thing for me is outrage drives engagement, and there’s plenty of people that don’t agree with them and then get into a debate with them and that ends up all helping me in the long run.”
Rousey’s unceremonious exit from the sport left a sour taste in the mouths of many fans. After losing to Holm, Rousey shied away from media and public appearances. Many have voiced that it wasn’t that Rousey finally lost, but how she handled the losses.
Regardless of how her final days in the UFC were interpreted, Rousey unapologetically did it all her way, on her terms. That’s something she feels is missing from the current landscape of women’s MMA, and she is concerned about the longevity of women in the sport unless that changes.
“I think one of the problems that a lot of the women in MMA have now is they’re trying to be as inoffensive as possible and to not say anything outrageous,” Rousey said. “That’s how we almost lost women’s MMA, you know? People trying to quietly not offend anyone and quietly ask for permission to be there. I was like, ‘No man, you have to make your space, not ask for space.’
“That’s something that I kind of worry about these days is that people forget how recently it was so different and they feel so secure in the way things are now and they’re not fighting for their space anymore, they’re just occupying.”
