Injuries are the worst. They derail training camps, postpone dream matchups, and sometimes ruin fights before they even begin. But this time, none of that happened. During the post-fight press conference, MVP co-founder Nikisha Bidarian revealed that Ronda Rousey entered the bout carrying an injury.
He chose not to go into specifics, but after her explosive 17-second victory over Gina Carano, ‘The Arm Collector’ stepped forward and explained how a brutal lesson from her mother taught her to fight through pain, and ultimately helped her overcome the injury to win.
“I sprained my ankle or foot pretty bad, like two and a half weeks ago,” Rousey told reporters. “But it just made me think of my first injury. As a kid, I broke my big toe in judo, and my mom made me run laps around the mat for the rest of the night. And she said, ‘You don’t know if you’re going to get hurt on the most important day, you get hurt the day of the Olympics, you get hurt when it really matters. And you need to know that your body listens to you, not the other way around.’”
Ronda Rousey on fighting injured: "Your body listens to you. Not the other way around..." ——— #RouseyCarano #DiazPerry #NgannouLins
And that advice came not just from a mother, but a former judoka. Rousey’s mother, Dr. AnnMaria De Mars, became the first American to win a gold medal at the World Judo Championships in 1984. She coached and heavily influenced Ronda’s early judo career, helping her reach Olympic bronze in 2008 and later success in the UFC.
So, while De Mars has the experience and knows best what to do in such situations, pushing through an injury might not always be the best advice. Fighting through the pain to continue training and fighting might sound heroic, but it could have a long-lasting impact. But Rousey, who has previously claimed that the Carano fight would be her last, didn’t appear to have minded that possibility and moved forward anyway.
“And man, I was like, ‘Thanks for the trauma, mama,’ Ronda Rousey added. “When it happened two and a half weeks left. And I’m like, ‘Well, looks like I’m doing this with my ankle messed up.’ But I basically have never had a fight where I wasn’t injured in some way… I never pull out of a fight because I always fight anyway.”
Despite that, Rousey revealed that she tried her hardest not to let the pain surface or show throughout fight week. Although face-offs and weigh-ins made things much more difficult, she “got it done anyway. And no one was really the wiser.” While Ronda Rousey didn’t let her injury derail or postpone her fight against Carano, the same can’t be said about a fighter who was supposed to be on the card.
Ex-UFC star was forced to withdraw from the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano card
Lorenz Larkin had been scheduled to face ex-Bellator champion Jason Jackson in a welterweight showdown on the Rousey vs. Carano card. The bout was expected to be one of the standout MMA contests on the May 16 card. But he had to withdraw from the fight due to a knee injury in training weeks before the event.
Larkin announced the news in a statement posted on social media, apologizing to fans for being unable to compete.
“I’m sorry to all the fans, but I had to pull out due to a knee injury,” he wrote. “I’ll be rehabbing it back to 100% and will be back.”
The withdrawal must have been a disappointment for Larkin, given the financial rewards attached to the event. Ronda Rousey previously revealed that every fighter on the card was guaranteed a minimum purse of $40,000. Rousey herself received $2.2 million, and Carano got $1.05 million.
Clearly, while Larkin prioritized his health over money, Ronda Rousey wanted to push through the pain as she had done before in her career. Do you think it was the right decision?
