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Alarming Reason Would Have Forced Dana White to Retire Ronda Rousey in 2015 After Holly Holm Loss

Published 04/04/2024, 2:04 AM EDT

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‘The Baddest Woman on the Planet’ Ronda Rousey recently opened up about her tribulations with concussions through her new book, ‘Our Fight: A Memoir‘. Despite those medical issues, the former UFC and WWE star often resorted to keeping people in the dark about it. However, Rousey recently revealed the real reason behind that during an interview.

The pioneer of women’s MMA was ‘Sports Illustrated‘s most dominant athlete in the world in 2015. She was on a 10-fight undefeated winning streak before everything came to a crashing halt. Ronda Rousey faced former champion Holly Holm in 2015, and according to her, she was not feeling it that right.

Ronda Rousey “couldn’t take it anymore”

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‘Rowdy’ was not feeling all that good, as the fight was about to begin at UFC 193. Ronda Rousey told YouTuber Valeria Lipovetsky that she had concussed herself in a mishap before she went in to fight Holly Holm. She stated, “My first loss, I was not, like, my mouth guard was bad, I literally came into that fight concussed from slipping down some stairs already after all these years of concussions.” The fight ended briefly, 59 seconds to be exact.

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Ronda Rousey was knocked out for the first time. Some people have presented their own takes on her loss, but she revealed to have not been a hundred percent that night. The loss was a wake-up call to her in terms of realizing how much damage her body has taken since she started fighting. “When it got to a point where I’d just taken so much neurological damage that I couldn’t take it anymore. Suddenly, everything I accomplished meant nothing,” Rousey added. Despite being in a dire situation, the 37-year-old refused to open up to anyone about it. Here’s what she had to say about that.

Why didn’t Rousey tell anyone about her concussion?

Ronda Rousey was afraid to tell anyone about her piled-up concussions. The reason behind it was because of her UFC career, she did not want it to come to an end. Besides, the 37-year-old also did not want to sound like she had excuses for her loss to Holly Holm. Rousey mentioned that if Dana White had gotten word about her predicament, he would simply ask her to retire, something she was not willing to do since she was only 28 years old at that time.

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“[If people knew about her concussion] people would have thought I was just making excuses… If my coach or Dana knew how bad things had gotten, they’d have made me retire and I wasn’t ready,” said Rousey. Despite being the biggest combat sportswoman in history, her career in the promotion she made her name in did not end in the way she would have wanted.

Ronda Rousey was always in the public eye when she was fighting and headlining pay-per-views. But now, she is enjoying a quiet life with her husband and ex-UFC fighter, Travis Browne, and her two teenage boys on a regenerative farm.

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Meanwhile, what do you think about Ronda Rousey’s confession? Drop your comments down below.

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Written by:

Himanga Mahanta

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Himanga Mahanta is a senior UFC writer at EssentiallySports. An all-rounder in his coverage of the sport, Himanga is a reliable voice with a knack for providing analytical coverage of breaking stories from the world of MMA. His 1700+ articles include perspective pieces on trending UFC stories, and both live and post-event coverage of weekly events.
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Edited by:

Joyita Das