Ronda Rousey knocked out by Holly Holm one year ago today, November 14
Ronda Rousey cites concussions as reason for leaving MMA competition
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey has revealed that a history of concussions from years of judo competitions and training played a major factor in her retirement from professional mixed martial arts.
Rousey was the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in judo by winning bronze at the 2008 Summer Olympic before becoming the UFC’s first female champion.
“Rowdy” retired from MMA competition at age 29 after back-to-back knockout losses to former champions Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
Now at age 37, Rousey opened up in an Instagram live video about what led to her decision to retire from MMA.
“I’d like people to understand my reasons and motivations behind things,” Rousey said as she promoted the upcoming release of her memoir, “Our Fight“. “I was forced to leave fighting when I was faster, stronger, more skilled and had a better understanding of the art than ever before. It was a really hard decision to understand, one that my body made for me.”
Retiring from MMA with a professional record of 12-2, Rousey then transitioned to professional wrestling with the WWE.
“I think there was just so much to [that loss] that I couldn’t talk about it in the form of an interview or article or anything like that, or there would be several filters between my words and people reading it,” Rousey said. “So much had to do with having so many concussions when I was in judo before I even got into MMA. I couldn’t talk about it at all when I was doing MMA because it would literally put a target on my head, and I might not have been allowed to compete any farther.”
