When Ronda Rousey made her skilled combined martial arts debut in King of the Cage in March 2011, nobody knew that she’d change the panorama of the game. She was signed by Strikeforce later that 12 months and was seen by UFC matchmakers.
On the time, girls didn’t compete within the UFC. There have been no girls’s divisions. Rousey’s star energy and skill to arm bar seemingly any opponent propelled girls into the highlight and altered the thoughts of UFC CEO Dana White. White as soon as mentioned that ladies would by no means battle within the UFC. however then he met Rousey.
Rousey was the inaugural UFC girls’s bantamweight champion and the primary feminine fighter signed by the battle promotion. She defended the title six instances earlier than shedding her final two fights and leaving the game. Since strolling away in 2016, Rousey hasn’t even attended an occasion. She believes the MMA media and the followers have turned on her and that she’s not welcome at occasions.
“I really feel like I’m actually vilified by MMA media at this level and I’m probably not welcomed again, which is why I haven’t gone to a UFC battle since, ’trigger I’m fairly positive if I walked into the world, I’d be booed. Yeah! That’s the way it feels,” Rousey mentioned in a current interview on the “Excessive Efficiency” podcast.
Former UFC title challenger and commentator Chael Sonnen does not suppose Rousey’s therapy was distinctive, and believes she was handled like each different fighter.
“If the general public understood Ronda is finished, I can guarantee you they might not boo her. If her profession have been actually carried out and it is not a back-and-forth, and it is not a play, and it is to not get a much bigger contract right here… If they honestly understood that that artist, even when a martial artist, however that artist’s profession is behind, they completely wouldn’t boo,” mentioned Sonnen.
Associated: Khabib Nurmagomedov: ‘We’ve nice respect for Dustin Poirier, however …’
“She is true. That is how her profession went. They constructed her to the best and the second she fell they talked about she was horrible. That is true. The half that she’s lacking is that”s not distinctive. There’s by no means been anyone to return alongside who has a narrative that is any completely different,” Sonnen continued.
“The peaks and the valleys of many different athletes aren’t the identical. They by no means rose to the extent that Ronda did and due to this fact that fall was by no means fairly as dramatic. And that is simply one thing we find out about life. What goes up should come down. Not possibly and never generally. What goes up should come down,” Sonnen mentioned.
“I do admit, it may need felt distinctive to Ronda. It may need felt like an additional stage of hate, and even meanness by the followers… In the event you stand again and have a look at it there was nothing, and I imply nothing, except for the peaks and the valleys, these have been greater and I believe decrease, however there was nothing about her profession or the way in which the media handled her that is not how the media treats everyone.”
