MMA Notes: Ronda Rousey Reveals Why She Left The Octagon

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Share this Story : MMA Notes: Ronda Rousey reveals why she left the octagon
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For maybe the first time since she was steamrolled by Amanda Nunes 15 months ago, Ronda Rousey spoke candidly about the end of her career as a professional fighter.

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After losing to Nunes in the main event of UFC 207 in December 2016, Rousey went off the radar. Occasionally, a photo of the women’s MMA trailblazer would surface online, but there were no interviews with fight reporters, nor ESPN. Not with anybody, really.

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But as she transitions to a career in WWE and continues promoting her Wrestlemania match, Rousey has begun taking questions. For the most part, it’s been incredibly awkward when reporters have asked about her MMA career, but on Wednesday ESPN’s Brett Okamoto managed to get Rousey to open up.

In the interview, Rousey admitted that her heart hadn’t been fully committed to cage-fighting near the tail-end of her career.

“Judo and MMA, there were times when the process was fun and then there were times where it got to be only the results were fun, you know?” Rousey said. “And then there’s a time when things just run their course. You fall in love, then you fall out of love and you find a new love.”

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Rousey spoke with Okamoto about a variety of subjects, ranging from her respect and admiration for Conor McGregor to her decision to re-enter the spotlight with the WWE.

One thing that was clear, though, is that Rousey seems a lot more at-peace with her MMA career being over than many in the media were giving her credit for.

Would she still be fighting if she hadn’t been knocked out by Holly Holm in 2015 and then been TKO’d by Nunes 13 months later? It doesn’t sound like she would have, even if those fights had gone differently and she’d continued to look invincible.

“There was a while when I was just looking for an honourable way out,” Rousey said. “I felt satisfied, like I proved everything I needed to prove, but I didn’t feel like anybody else felt that way and I wasn’t sure that the women’s division could survive without me.

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“I felt obligated to do more than I actually wanted to, I feel.”

THAT WAS DUMB

The UFC held a media conference call on Wednesday to help drum up interest in next week’s UFC 223 card.

It did not go well.

While a little bit of trash talk here and there never hurt anybody, Wednesday was over-the-top and it’s hard to imagine how anyone listening to interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson and challenger Khabib Nurmagomedov try to talk over each other for an hour was going to feel anything other than boredom.

There were good lines here and there, but there was nothing charming about the way Nurmagomedov and Ferguson talked trash. It took the better part of half an hour for women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas or challenger Joanna Jedrzejczyk were even asked a question.

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Are there fans who love trash talk? Sure, but the Nurmagomedov-Ferguson fight isn’t one that should need a ton of manufactured drama to generate interest. They’re fighting for Conor McGregor’s soon-to-be vacated 155-pound belt and they happen to be among the most dominant, entertaining fighters in the world.

Everything else is just a distraction, and it wasn’t even all that fun on Wednesday.

LOOKING GOOD

The UFC is really going all-out for its debut in Liverpool, England on May 27.

The company has already announced that local lad Darren Till will headline the card against somebody or other, and it’s expected that his opponent will be finalized in the next couple of days.

For now, though, the matchmakers are serving up a few interesting fights, including a tasty welterweight tilt between Neil Magny and Gunnar Nelson.

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Nelson hasn’t fought since he lost to Santiago Ponzinibbio last summer, but Magny is coming off a huge win over veteran star Carlos Condit at UFC 219 at the end of December.

They’re both considered to be just outside the bubble of top contenders at welterweight, but not by much.

They should also provide a little bit of a safety blanket for the UFC should Till’s opponent – whomever that may be – be forced to pull out. Having a couple big-name welterweights preparing to fight on the same night means the UFC won’t be short on options.

AROUND THE OCTAGON

Rumours continue to swirl about the UFC’s next date in Canada coming at the end of July. We’ll have more on that next week … Frankie Edgar spoke candidly about the risks of taking a mid-April fight against Cub Swanson after getting knocked out by Brian Ortega in early-March when he was a guest on the MMA Hour podcast this week. It’s good that he understands the risks that fighting so quickly after getting knocked unconscious present, but it’s still hard to stomach the idea that this fight is actually happening.

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