Ronda Rousey didn’t come back to MMA on a whim; she came back after finally getting answers she’d been chasing for years. With a May 16 return against Gina Carano locked in at Intuit Dome, the former UFC champion is stepping into the cage after nearly a decade away, and under heavier medical scrutiny than most fighters ever face.

The California commission has already confirmed expanded neurological testing for both women, and Rousey’s own history made that inevitable. She’s spoken about concussion symptoms dating back to her judo days, about losing chunks of vision in sparring, about not always knowing what was actually happening to her body. This time, she says the fog lifted. The turning point came after UFC boss Dana White sent her to the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, where a full battery of tests led to what she calls a “life-changing” breakthrough.

“I actually finally got a positive diagnosis because we’ve never been really able to figure out what’s going on with me,” Rousey recently shared on The Jim Rome Show. “Basically, from lighter and lighter hits, I’m getting concussion symptoms. I lose big chunks of my vision, my depth perception, and my ability to think clearly. Dr. Bernick at the Cleveland Clinic said, ‘Listen. Listen to all of your symptoms. I’ve looked at all of your scans. Your brain looks great…’”

“Just recently, we’ve been able to find something that I can take, that’s preventative, that hopefully will be able to resolve this issue for me. It’s life-changing. Of course, I’m going to be going into the fight with the intention of not getting hit once. Because that’s basically what I’ve had to do my entire career. But thanks to Dana sending me to the Cleveland Clinic, I finally got a positive diagnosis and really know what’s going on and have some actionable knowledge to work off of.”

She explained that after Dr. Charles Bernick told her the scans looked good, they then connected the dots from her history of migraines and a family line of epilepsy. Rousey clarified that people with migraines can be more susceptible to concussion-like symptoms, and repeated hits can trigger what doctors call migraine aura.

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There’s still a regulatory layer that can’t be ignored. The California State Athletic Commission confirmed Rousey and Carano will undergo concussion battery testing, MRIs, MRAs, neurocognitive exams, and cardiac workups. This isn’t window dressing. The commission has turned down fights before due to medical concerns.

Rousey is 12–2, the first UFC women’s bantamweight champion, with six title defenses and a run where most of her fights ended in the first round. Carano is 7–1, a trailblazer who fought Cris Cyborg for Strikeforce gold in 2009. This is a legacy matchup packaged by Most Valuable Promotions and streamed on Netflix, which tells you exactly who it’s for: fans who remember when these two names carried the division. But according to a former champion, there’s only one outcome of this bout!

Sean Stickland favors Ronda Rousey to “steamroll” Gina Carano

Sean Strickland didn’t dress it up. He looked at Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano and called it a mismatch, full stop. “Ronda Rousey’s going to steamroll her,” ‘Tarzan’ recently told Newsweek Sports. “Ronda Rousey’s an Olympian that was a multitime world champion.”

He leaned on the résumé: Rousey is an Olympic medalist, a multi-time world champion, and a Hall of Famer. Carano, in his words, was a star in an era when women’s MMA was still finding its feet. His language went further, calling the matchup something he has “no interest in,” and framing it as a spectacle rather than a sport.

There’s a blunt logic behind the take, even if the delivery is rough. Carano’s 7–1 record matters historically, but her last MMA fight was in 2009, and it ended in a loss to Cris Cyborg. Seventeen years of inactivity is a canyon in combat sports terms. Even with Rousey’s long layoff since 2016, the gap in recent competition is still massive. Whatever happens on May 16, Rousey’s return now carries more context than hype. The real takeaway isn’t whether this fight should exist. It’s that Ronda Rousey is walking into it with clarity she didn’t have before about her symptoms and her limits.