Former WWE/UFC star Ronda Rousey appeared on Steve O’s “Wild Ride!” podcast to promote her book titled “Our Fight: A Memoir.”
“People weren’t as aware of concussions back when I was a kid doing judo. It was the kind of thing where you hit your head and you started getting photo vision or nauseous or a headache and things like that. You didn’t say anything because the coach would be like, ‘Stop being a p*ssy, you just have a headache.’ For 10 years, I was experiencing concussion symptoms more often than not. Every single night you’re hitting the ground over and over again. [When] you’re doing jude, it’s impacts and so it would keep aggravating it. I would get one concussion and the symptoms would persist for weeks and months. I would get them multiple times a year and every time you get one, it’s easier to get another. By the time I got into MMA, if I got hit even reasonably hard I’d start seeing stars and so I had to develop a fighting style where I never got hit and I finished fights quickly. I did that on purpose…that was the system of fighting that I created. It got to a point where it was getting worse and worse. Lighter and lighter hits would start giving me concussion symptoms and I couldn’t tell anybody about it because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I wasn’t invulnerable…I needed to convince myself that I could be perfect in every single match and no one could ever touch me. Trying to attempt something that crazy you need to have that kind of confidence in yourself and I couldn’t tell my coach and I couldn’t tell Dana because they would make me stop and make me retire.”
Rousey said that it wasn’t about just collecting a paycheck and she wanted to be the best in the world. Rousey continued, “Right before the [Holly] Holm fight, I slipped on some f**king stairs in my socks [and] tore out my knee, knocked myself out on the stairs two weeks before the fight. This was after somebody else already pulled out of the fight. Dana needed me to fill in, I couldn’t pull out. So I fought anyway already having a concussion and my mouthguard was the wrong mouthguard. It didn’t have the back on the teeth and so the first time I got hit and knocked my teeth out, it knocked me on my feet. I couldn’t f*cking see, I couldn’t tell distance. So the whole fight I was just trying to make it not look like I was out on my feet trying to recover. All I could do was keep coming forward even though I couldn’t see how far away she was. I was continuing taking hits over and over but I was like I can’t let it show that I’m hurt because I get like descended upon, it’s f*cking over. It’s still like irks me to this day that people judge that performance as like how I fight or what my gameplan was when that was me literally out of my feet trying not to let it show. Then after that it was just like the smallest hits would give me a concussion. Stephanie McMahon and Nikki Bella slapping me with an open hand would give me a concussion. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything about it after the fight because I was expected to fight again and I couldn’t let anyone know that it had gotten that bad.”
Rousey talked about joining WWE and hiding her concussion history:
“When I wanted to go to WWE, they’ve had such a complicated past with concussions and stuff like that. They wouldn’t hire me if they knew it was that point. If I let them know how often I was getting concussions, they wouldn’t let me perform in matches. I had a lifetime of experience hiding the fact that I was concussed all the time. So, yea now I can finally talk about it because I don’t think I’ll be wrestling for WWE ever again.”
Rousey said it was a little easier in WWE because if she was seeing stars during a match, she could tell her opponent to ease up for a minute. Rousey also talked about how tough it was for her to leave MMA.
“It makes it tough because I had to leave a sport where I’ve never been faster, never been stronger, and never had a better grasp of the art. You only get one brain and it doesn’t callus. It inevitably declines and degenerates and I have to be like an ambassador for this sport forever and if I end up like Muhammad Ali, it’s not going to help the sport and you don’t want to be one of those fighters that stick around a little bit too long because it’s sad to watch. It’s so hard to say when especially when you’ve never been better but you only get one brain. I already have dementia and Alzheimers in my family and it’s one of my fears.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Steve O’s Wild Ride! with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Quotes were transcribed by Jim for WrestlingNews.co.
