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"Rowdy" made a heartfelt admission about her tough loss to "The Preacher's Daughter" in 2015.
Written by John Tan
Last updated on May 25th, 2024
- Ronda Rousey opened up about how she dealt with her title fight loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193
- “Rowdy” credits her husband for helping her cope with the devastation
Ronda Rousey reflected on her upset title fight loss to Holly Holm in 2015.
Speaking to a Q&A during her recent book tour, “Rowdy” opened up about how difficult it was for her to get over the fact that she was no longer the UFC bantamweight champion. Following her knockout loss to Holm at UFC 193, Rousey confessed that she badly hurt emotionally but people failed to understand why.
“I cared about that title more than anybody ever has,” Rousey confided. “It hurt me more than anybody that’s ever been hurt by losing it. That’s why I was able to defend so much for so long.”
“It’s hard for a lot of people to understand, to have something mean that much to you,” she continued. “It’s like, ‘Why are you so upset? It’s just a fight.’ Well, it’s just somebody else’s fight to you, but I think one thing that’s really important if you’re going to be a fighter at an extremely high level, or an athlete, or someone who runs a business, or anything like that, you have to be willing to get your heart broken in order to put every fiber of your being into something.
Rousey admitted that defending her title was everything to her at the time. Looking back, she knew she gave it all she got and that was the reason why she was so devastated by the upset loss.
“You’re going to know whether everything you have is good enough. I think that a lot of people have this tendency to preserve themselves and not put everything out there, and when it doesn’t work out, you’re like, ‘Well, it wasn’t everything I had, I could have done it if I gave it everything I had.’”
“It’s because I care that much,” Rousey said. “Caring more than the other person. Caring more than anybody else is an advantage, but it will be what comes back to bite you if it doesn’t work out.”
Ronda slowly got back on her feet
As Rousey dealt with the aftermath of her first defeat, she was accompanied and consoled by her husband Travis Browne. For “Rowdy,” her road to recovery wouldn’t have been faster and easier if it hadn’t been for “Hapa.”
“It was a lot of crepes and chocolate and crying and World of Warcraft, and just not rushing it,” Rousey recounted. “I just allowed it to suck for as long as it needed to, but I also would have become a Golem cave creature if it wasn’t for my husband.
“He was like, ‘You need to go outside and get some coffee.’ I’m like, ‘There’s TMZ cameras,’ and he made me go outside and have all the TMZ pictures taken. He made me go outside and bite the bullet and get their damn pictures, because they were like camping outside my house for two weeks,” she continued.
“While I was getting my root canal because I got all my teeth knocked out, I was forced to lay there and watch TV, getting four root canals at once, and TMZ comes on blasting me going to get coffee,” she said with a laugh. “Like, ‘Look at this loser getting her coffee!’ I was like, ‘This is hell.’”
In her return, Rousey suffered another loss when Amanda Nunes finished her at UFC 207. That marked the end of her MMA career as she eventually switched to pro wrestling since then.
Rousey left MMA with a pro record of 12-2. She is currently with the WWE and is very much involved in the creation of the new Netflix film about herself.
Quotes via MMA Fighting.
John is an established combat sports writer and editor who also has a background in marketing. He has been following and covering the most thrilling UFC stories for years.
