Ronda Rousey was solely two fights into her MMA profession when she signed with Strikeforce. Quickly after, she grew to become one of many faces of the game and helped usher ladies into UFC.
It’s been documented many occasions over that UFC CEO Dana White famously mentioned ladies would by no means battle within the octagon, however Rousey grew to become the game-changer that altered his imaginative and prescient for the promotion. However all the best way again in 2011, Rousey was simply an up-an-coming fighter hoping she might make sufficient of an impression for somebody like White to note her.
Wanting again now, Rousey admits she felt a accountability to get White’s consideration, particularly with the information that girls had been probably on the slicing block after UFC bought Strikeforce.
“Individuals overlook how fragile that state of affairs was and the way last-minute I used to be capable of get us in,” Rousey advised Chris Van Vliet. “Strikeforce was the one group that was actually showcasing ladies and that was due to Gina Carano, as a result of her dad was concerned with the Nevada Athletic Fee and was capable of sanction fights for her and all this stuff.
“When she was gone, Cris Cyborg’s pumped to the f*cking gills with steroids. Nobody needs to observe that dishonest ass bitch. All the things simply tanked. The division was dying. The UFC purchased Strikeforce and it was assumed they had been simply going to soak up all the male expertise that they preferred and fold the entire group, as a result of that’s what they did with PRIDE, that’s what they did with WEC, that was their enterprise mannequin. So there was a matter of time.”
Previous to Rousey’s arrival, Carano was undoubtedly the largest star in ladies’s MMA, however she successfully left the game in 2009 after she suffered a first-round TKO loss to Cris Cyborg. Her departure from MMA didn’t cease Strikeforce from selling ladies’s fights, however Rousey knew UFC shopping for the group was going to probably change every thing.
From that second ahead, Rousey made it her mission to get consideration by any means obligatory, and her devastating finishes mixed together with her penchant for the dramatic each time she touched a microphone helped her change into a famous person.
“I used to be the primary girl signed to Strikeforce because it obtained purchased by Zuffa, and I used to be introduced in to exchange Gina Carano as a result of she was supposed to return in for a comeback however she wasn’t medically cleared to return again for her match,” Rousey mentioned. “So she pulled out and so they signed me to battle that very same chick, Sarah D’Alelio. So I knew the clock was ticking.
“It was only a matter of time earlier than they closed the entire thing and there could be nowhere that might showcase ladies’s MMA, so I had that a lot time to ensure that Dana [White] couldn’t go a single day with out seeing my title someplace. The remaining is historical past.”
Even after White determined to advertise ladies’s fights in UFC, Rousey nonetheless didn’t really feel like she was standing on strong floor.
At first, ladies solely had one UFC division and it was headed up by Rousey alongside together with her appreciable potential to attract a crowd. Even after UFC dedicated to a deeper roster for ladies and a number of divisions, Rousey nonetheless wasn’t certain what would occur if she simply determined someday to stroll away.
“As soon as ladies had been dropped at the UFC, [Dana] mentioned, ‘That is an experiment, that is to see the way it goes,’” Rousey mentioned. “It obtained to some extent the place we needed to see how it will go with out me as a result of it was so depending on me.
“Whereas, I believe if I retired undefeated and left, I don’t know what it will be like. As a result of they’ve already introduced within the [145-pound] division and closed it. They’re not towards closing divisions.”
As of late, UFC promotes three totally different ladies’s divisions, and whereas no feminine fighter has reached stratospheric ranges of fame like Rousey, there’s loads of ladies’s expertise on the prime of the game.
Rousey issued a reminder to the present crop of UFC fighters — female and male — that all of them share a accountability that goes past simply coaching exhausting and exhibiting as much as compete.
A part of the rationale she was capable of persuade White to deliver her and the ladies’s division into UFC was as a result of she commanded a lot consideration. Rousey believes extra fighters must take discover that their job goes thus far past simply preventing.
“I believe one factor individuals don’t perceive now as fighters — and those that do perceive it do extraordinarily nicely — it’s like, it’s important to promote your battle as exhausting as you practice for it,” Rousey mentioned. “Lots of people really feel so safe of their place that they will simply present up and battle and they need to get every thing thrown at them. It’s not the corporate that promotes you. You shouldn’t expect the corporate to spend all this cash to advertise you. What are they going to do? Make extra commercials? You need to go on the market and promote your self. You need to go on the market and be a personality and make your fights right into a story, and the issues that I discovered from professional wrestling.
“Earlier than I even obtained into there, I used to be attempting to deliver that into ladies’s MMA, and I believe loads of them overlook they’re not supposed to simply be athletes however entertainers. It’s not one thing you do on the facet. It’s one thing you do equally as exhausting and put simply as a lot time and effort and focus into. Lots of people simply consider it as a hassle or one thing they should do as a result of the corporate makes them do it. That’s why you see some individuals which might be completely unbelievable and nobody exterior of MMA has ever heard of them.”
