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“I Walked Off the Mat Fighting Back Tears” – Ronda Rousey Shared Her Side of the 2004 Olympics Story

Published 12/31/2022, 2:58 PM EST

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Ronda Rousey is one of the most looked-up personalities hailing from the UFC. She not only became a champion in the UFC but also in WWE. She became the first woman to enter the UFC Hall of Fame. Furthermore, her skills as a judoka are nothing less than excellent. She was, in fact, the youngest judoka to have qualified for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. However, she could not catch a win in her first-ever Olympic Games. Without a doubt, it didn’t stop her from moving forward.

‘Rowdy’ later co-authored a book with her sister, Maria Burns-Ortiz, titled ‘My Fight/ Your Fight’. The book is nothing but a memoir for the UFC Hall of Famer. However, her emotions in the book reflect exactly what she felt during her loss at the 2004 Olympics.

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Ronda Rousey felt truly awful at the 2004 Olympic Games

The idol for many female fighters was once a 17-year-old judo competitor in the Olympics. Although she was the youngest woman to qualify for the 2004 Olympics, the experience was not something that brought her mind to ease. In the memoir, she declared that she lost due to a bad call.

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She told the readers that she lost the first round. ‘Rowdy’ claimed that she threw her opponent, but the officials did nothing. She wrote, “I lost in the first round. It was a bulls**t call. I threw her and the officials acted like nothing happened. “

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The Arm Collector’ then continued, “As if watching from an extreme distance, I saw the referee right next to me raise a hand in my opponent’s direction. I felt disoriented. I didn’t know what to do or where to go or how to process what was happening.”

She further stated, “This is not how it was supposed to go, I thought. It was as if the world had been turned upside down. I was in shock. I walked off the mat fighting back tears.”

“Three Life-Changing Words” Very Close to WWE Star Ronda Rousey That She Recollected in Her Book My Fight/Your Fight

Following the loss, Rousey entered the repechage bracket. Unfortunately, she could not get the bronze, as well. It broke the fighter. She wrote, “I waited for the emotion to wash over me, for the tears to fall, for my knees to give out. But I realized that I couldn’t feel any more pain. I had lost the Olympics”

Ronda Rousey’s successful ventures 

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Combat sports are not the only platforms where ‘Rowdy’ excelled. Undeniably, she is the only woman to headline a PPV in both UFC and WWE. But her ventures took her outside the lines of MMA, professional wrestling, and judo. Apart from entering the Hall of Fame in WWE as well as UFC, her appearance in Hollywood took her popularity to a whole new level.

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The former mixed martial artist has starred in blockbuster movies like ‘The Expendables 2’, ‘Furious 7’ and ‘Mile 22’. Without a doubt, the fighter’s journey from judo to the big screen was nothing short of a thrilling adventure.

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What are your thoughts on Rousey’s struggles in the 2004 Olympic Games? Let us know in the comments below.

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Written by:

Krushna Prasad Pattnaik

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Krushna Pattnaik is a UFC writer at EssentiallySports. Coming from a pharmaceutical background with a master's degree in the same and multiple scientific publications, his passion for combat sports and writing brought him to EssentiallySports, where both of his passions met in a beautiful collaboration. He is an instrumentalist and has a profound love for books.
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Edited by:

Vineet Nandwana