Ronda Rousey is coming back for her first fight in a decade when she faces Gina Carano on May 16, but the former UFC champion has made it clear she’s not sticking around beyond this one matchup.
Well that is unless the fight against Carano is so compelling that it demands a rematch.
“I’m done fighting after this,” Rousey told The Breakfast Club during a recent appearance. “Unless something goes down in this match that it deserves a trilogy from me and Gina. But I promised my husband, I promised my sister, everybody that this is my last one. I want to have more kids, too.”
Since leaving the UFC in 2016 following back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, Rousey spent time performing in WWE but then put her full focus on starting a family with her husband, ex-UFC heavyweight Travis Browne.
They’ve since had two kids and Rousey obviously wants more, which is really what’s going to drive her after the fight against Carano is over.
Assuming she’s victorious in her comeback, Rousey would undoubtedly have a lot of money on the table for another fight — perhaps a rematch against Holly Holm since she’s also no longer on the UFC roster — but none of that matters much to her.
“We make money so we can spend our time how we want with who we want where we want. I already have that. If I’m going spending time away from my family to make more money that’s not going to change our situation at all, what are you doing? It’s just dragon sickness.
“Keep in mind what you’re doing these things for. I’m doing it for them. I don’t want to spend more time away from them trying to get more money that they don’t need.”
With plans to truly retire after she’s done fighting on May 16, Rousey is pouring everything into her preparation to give the conclusion of her career a more satisfying ending than she had in the UFC.
But in the weeks leading up to the fight, Rousey has maintained an overly friendly attitude towards Carano with very little animosity between them. They’ve done nothing but compliment each other and Rousey has spoken numerous times about how she concocted a plan for this fight after seeing that Carano really needed it, especially after her acting career took a massive hit when she was effectively fired by Disney for controversial social media posts.
While Rousey concedes that there’s absolutely no bad blood towards Carano ahead of this fight, she promises the result is still going to be the same as many of her most famous performances during her career.
“I mean I’m a two-time Olympian,” Rousey explained. “I fought everywhere around the world, every person around the world. I have so much respect for just the Olympics itself and everyone putting everything that’s going on in the world aside and let’s just do something that we have in common. Let’s just compete and let’s just do a sport together.
“I have no problem with anybody from Turkmenistan, but I’m going to break that bitch’s f*cking arm if she bows across from me. That’s just what I was taught to do since I was a little kid. I’ve been breaking arms since I was 14 years old and a lot of these girls are my friends. That’s just part of being a combat sports athlete. That’s how we show our respect to each other. It’s a little bit dysfunctional, but it’s also a weirdly intimate relationship that you have with somebody that you are sharing this very primal moment.”
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