Ronda Rousey: Beyond The Cage

Ronda Rousey: Beyond The Cage

It’s been nearly ten years since we have seen Ronda Rousey inside a cage. She’s Back was the tagline for UFC 207 in 2016. She was. But not for long.

Amanda Nunes was criminally overlooked in the build-up. It was the Ronda Rousey show. After her shocking loss to Holly Holm earlier in the year, Rousey was favoured to retain her UFC bantamweight title. But Nunes had the last word. Inside a minute. Rousey was battered and stopped on her feet. As quickly as it came, the Rousey era was over.

Rousey went away. Her life in Mixed Martial Arts seemingly over. Rousey had a couple of runs in the WWE. She started a family. Wrote a second autobiography. Rousey went deep, revealing concussion-related concerns. An MMA comeback looked dead in the water. But by the miracles of the dollar, everything is forgotten, and ‘She’s Back’ again. This time, promising it will definitely be one and done.

On Saturday night at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California, Rousey returns to face another fighter from another era in Gina Carano. The fight that time forgot. Or so we thought.

Rousey (12-2) and Carano (7-1) will trade blows and elbows live on Netflix with the MVP razzle dazzle thrown in for good measure. Two fighters from a lost generation. A time when women’s MMA finally started to get mainstream acceptance. That time has moved on. The sport also. Rousey and Carano will do battle in an act of nostalgia. Quite rightly, they will be rewarded extremely well financially. Nobody is quite sure what we will get. But millions will tune in regardless. There is a hook, and the masses have bought into it.

There are no UFC titles on offer. Or any title for that matter. In many ways, it’s a pointless fight with little meaning. There is no edge to it. There is no beef. But it will nevertheless do well at the box office. It will tick enough boxes and attract enough numbers to justify the lofty expenditure. Rousey and Carano still have that all-important name value.

“You know, we don’t need to hate each other to be able to give each other our best,” a Rousey fight week quote that has a refreshing ring of truth about it. Sometimes you don’t have to fake it to make it work.

Carano is 44 and hasn’t fought since losing to Cris Cyborg in 2009 inside a round. Strikeforce promoted that event. Remember them. The 39-year-old Rousey is coming off a near ten-year retirement and two stoppage defeats. Holm and Nunes took away plenty from Rousey. It hit hard for a fighter who still claims she is the greatest of all time. She isn’t, but like Katie Taylor in boxing, Rousey is still a vital component in the rise of the female side of her sport. Women would have eventually found their way to UFC. But they got there a whole lot quicker because of Ronda Rousey.

After that shocking defeat to Amanda Nunes in 2016, as one scribe put it, walked away in a sulk. It wasn’t a good look. Akin to giving the middle finger to her fans and her sport. Perception of her changed. And quickly. But sometimes you have to give a fighter a break. Her rise was spectacular. The fall was even more so. For someone like Rousey, that must have been immensely difficult to handle.

“I am not chasing greatness, motherf****r. I am greatness.” Rousey has a point. The incredible self-belief, arrogance even, that perhaps contributed to her downfall and the great sulk that followed, still lingers.

But time heals many things. Rousey is back for one last dance. Carano has her reasons for coming back. She has referenced problems even walking in September. Pre-diabetic and 100lbs in weight lost. An incredible body transformation. Carano has had a difficult time. Rousey has literally given her a lifeline. “Five years ago, I gave up the dream, and then a turn of events, and I’m so grateful to Ronda for bringing me back into this.”

For Rousey, it probably runs a little deeper. Despite everything else that has been said in the build-up. It’s probably just about closure. She deserves that at the very least. History should be kind to her. At one time, she was a genuine must-watch superstar of her sport.

The odds strongly favour Rousey. And that’s how I see it ending. It probably won’t last too long. I don’t even see it getting out of the opening round. It might not be quite like what it once was in her peak years. But Rousey will get that closure. One last armbar. One last victory.

Photo Credit: Sarah Stier/Getty Images for Netflix