Ronda Rousey revealed just how seriously her neurological issues affected her during her stunning loss to Holly Holm that began her UFC downfall and eventual MMA exit.
The 39-year-old Rousey, who will return to sport to face fellow legend Gina Carano in the main event of Netflix’s first MMA card on Saturday, went into detail about exactly what she was going through during her knockout loss to Holm in 2015 that cost her the UFC women’s bantamweight title and undefeated record.
She said during an interview with Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani on Monday that he didn’t truly understand the neurological issues she was dealing with for an extended period of time and they finally caught up with her against Holm.
Ronda Rousey at a press conference for Most Valuable Promotions. Kyle Stevens/Shutterstock The effects set in the very first time she was hit in the bout and included knocking all her lower teeth loose and cutting her lip.
Holm is a multi-time boxing champion and the best striker Rousey had faced to that point.
A kick to the head in Round 2 put Rousey out for good.
“I got this huge migraine aura — a big chunk of my vision missing, like losing my depth perception and ability to think clearly, quickly, and track moving objects — but I was still on my feet and balanced,” Rousey said. “I’ve been trained my whole life to not show hurt — then they’re going to capitalize and know [if I show them]. So that entire fight was just me trying to hide the fact that I couldn’t see or think.”
The issues hadn’t gone away when she returned for her final UFC fight against Amanda Nunes, the division champion at the time and a rising star, a little more than a year later.
Nunes won in 59 seconds via punches, ending Rousey’s career for years almost as quickly as the former WWE star used to end most of her MMA battles during her 10-fight winning streak.
After the loss, Rousey knew her MMA career was pretty much over.
“I felt like I was judged on my fighting ability and IQ because of what was happening when I was dealing with not being able to see, and knowing my career was over because of itm” Rousey said. “No one could understand, and all these people were making judgments and assumptions about me and my fighting ability because of it, and I would never be able to set it right after that. It just got to the point where I couldn’t even get hit anymore.”
She credited UFC CEO Dana White for sending her to the Cleveland Clinic, which put her on “life-changing” preventative medication for her migraine aura. It’s allowing her the chance to end her fight career on her terms.
Holly Holm lands a left-high kick against Ronda Rousey in the second round of their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 193 event in 2015. Zuffa LLC via Getty Images “That’s why I’m able to do this [Carano] fight,” she said. “But I didn’t have any of that information then. I just thought I would be forever misunderstood and only known for those performances. That’s just not who I am as a fighter, and I’m always going to be judged for those performances.”
The mother of two believes everything happened for a reason.
The losses helped her give back some of her fight equity to Holm and Nunes and left her hungry to jump back in and face Carano in what she told The Post’s Scott Fontana she expects will be her last fight,
“It was meant to go that way so that I would be brought back to MMA, not just to serve myself and my own career, but to change the entire landscape of the sport because of this fight,” Rousey said. “MVP and Netflix are coming in as a real rival to the UFC that they so desperately need, and it’s giving fighters leverage that they never had. This is something that never would have happened if I retired undefeated.”
