On July 30th, 2015, Ronda Rousey was undefeated. She was determined to stay that way for the rest of her career.
I am going to retire undefeated. This Bethe is just one step on the way. #UFC190 #Aug1st #andSTILL pic.twitter.com/o4VS3nDWWz
— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) July 30, 2015
On December 30th, 2016, Rousey lost her second fight in a row and second overall. In short, she won’t retire undefeated, and UFC President Dana White thinks she’s going to retire with those back-to-back losses as her last two fights.
“In the conversation I had with her, if I had to say right here right now – again I don’t like saying right here right now because it’s up to her – but I would’t say she fights again,” White told UFC.com’s “UFC Unfiltered” podcast. “I think she’s probably done.”
Rousey defended her title successfully six straight times from 2013 to 2015, but lost her belt to Holly Holm on November 15th, 2015. That lost to Holm was her second fight after that tweet from July 30th, 2015.
A little over a year after her loss to Holm, Rousey was defeated by Amanda Nunes on December 30th, 2016 to drop her record to 12-2 overall and 6-2 in the UFC.
Once again, White thinks that will be Rousey’s record forever without another tally added to either mark.
“She’s going to ride off into the sunset and start living her life outside of fighting,” White said.
“She’s so competitive that her career and record meant everything to her,” White added. “And then once she lost, she started to say to herself, ‘What the (expletive) am I doing? This is my whole life. This is it? I want to experience and start doing other things.’ And I think that’s what she started to do, and she’s got a lot of money. She’s never going to need money again.”
Rousey is still only 29, and she’s still ranked fifth in MMA Junkie’s women’s bantamweight rankings. However, as White said, she’ll never need money again so why risk losing another fight when you can “ride off into the sunset”?
“I’m happy for her,” he said. “She came in and changed the world. She put female fighting on the map. She’s been part of the biggest fights in the history of women’s fighting, and I hope those records can be broken. I don’t know if they can, but I hope they do.”
Even if she retires, Rousey will still be known as one of the best female UFC fighters in the sport’s history, and one of the more prominent female athletes of all time. When she was winning, there was no doubt she was the best female fighter in the sport. If Rousey keeps fighting and keeps losing, her historical reputation could be destroyed.
