Ronda Rousey returned to training recently after her last fight in the UFC came all the way back in 2016 but does that mean she’s actually contemplating a comeback?
Well according to Rousey, no fighter is ever truly retired but getting back in the gym wasn’t necessarily about building towards a reunion with the UFC. The former bantamweight champion appreciates the compliments she’s received for the training footage posted on social media but she hasn’t been blowing up Dana White to ask about a comeback either.
“They’re like ‘you look so good!’ Because I’m the greatest ever,” Rousey told The Breakfast Club on Thursday. “Of course, this is what happens when I train! I look great. Sorry. I don’t have to have a plan for world domination in mind.
“But Mike Tyson coming back and being the biggest fight of last year just kind of proves that I don’t think anyone’s ever really done.”
Of course, Tyson returned to the ring at 58 years old for a boxing match against Jake Paul that became one of the most watched fights in the history of combat sports.
At 38, Rousey isn’t that far removed from her athletic prime but deciding to train again really had more to do with her own health and feeling better about her body after giving birth to her daughter back in January.
“I have a cage in my garage. It’s not like I went anywhere,” Rousey said with a laugh. “I really did mosey on out there [to train]. It’s really awesome I get to be kind of a spoiled brat now where I’m like ‘I just want to build a cage in my backyard and bring my friends over to do some karate.’ I’m just having fun with it again. It got to a point where it kind of got hijacked from me, and I was fighting and training for reasons other than my own.
“I think after having my last baby, being pregnant is f*cking tough. It felt like I was handicapped just compared to being a finely tuned athletic machine where I feel like I can do anything to suddenly I think if I did a forward roll, I would throw my back out. That’s just where it started, I wanted to get my bodily identity back from just being a vessel for creating another person. Just get that freedom of movement back. I started training MMA again because I feel like I kind of lost that identity as being a fighter, I think it broke my heart too much to be anywhere near it because I love it so much. I kind of went to the extreme where I don’t want to train. I don’t want to do anything at all.”
Rousey effectively cut all ties to the sport after her loss to Amanda Nunes before then moving onto become a superstar in WWE.
She eventually returned to the UFC when she was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018 but Rousey nixed talks about fighting again after revealing in her autobiography that repeated concussions played a part in her decision to walk away in the first place.
That said, Rousey admits she’s fallen in love with the sport all over again now, although really it’s just been fun to get back to something she always enjoyed doing before she became one of the biggest names to ever compete in the UFC.
“It was actually a friend of mine, one of my coaches, he was like ‘I really want to get my black belt in judo, can you help me get my black belt?’” Rousey explained. “I’m like all right so I had a couple of mats in my garage, he would come over, and I’d show him some judo. Then I started enjoying it again and he does wrestling and jiu-jitsu and stuff and it’s like let’s roll around a little bit. Let’s do that. Then my strength and conditioning coach had been coming throughout the years and like ‘how about you hold some paddles for me and hit some mitts’ and stuff like that.
“So it just kind of came from a place of just joy, and I just want to do it just because I enjoy it, instead of this is what I feel obligated to do or this is what I’m being coerced to be doing for one reason or another. It’s what my body really wants. It’s what I’ve been training to do my whole life and I just feel healthier and better and I want to train again.”
Obviously, Rousey didn’t shut down a potential comeback but she’s also not declaring her return from retirement.
For now, she’s just happy to get back on the mats again and remember why she did MMA in the first place.
“It makes me happy,” Rousey said. “It’s really funny, I’m training and everyone’s like ‘what are you training for? What are you doing?’ I’m like for my own joy. Is that bad?”
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