The medical diagnosis behind her comeback fight

In 2024, Ronda Rousey shut down comeback talk by claiming she’s not “neurologically fit” to fight because of her long history of suffering with concussion issues and brain trauma.

Now, the former UFC bantamweight champion has revealed the new diagnosis that paved the way for her to fight Gina Carano on May 16.

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Ronda Rousey provides health update

Ronda Rousey spoke with Dana White about her comeback before signing with Jake Paul‘s Most Valuable Promotions.

The UFC CEO insisted on getting Rousey neurologically tested before sanctioning a comeback.

“When I first approached Dana, he was like ‘first of all I want to make sure that you’re OK,’” the 39-year-old MMA legend said on The Jim Rome Show. “He sent me to the Cleveland Clinic, where they have a long-term neurological fighter study going on. They checked me, did every single test possible to check me, and I actually finally got a positive diagnosis.

“Because we’ve never been able to figure out what’s going on with me, and basically from lighter and lighter hits, I’m getting concussion symptoms. I lose big chunks of my vision, my depth perception, and ability to think clearly. Dr. [Charles] Bernick at the Cleveland Clinic said ‘I’ve listened to all of your symptoms, I’ve looked at all of your scans, your brain looks great.’”

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Rousey was relieved when she was given a new diagnosis and the right medication to ease her symptoms.

“What he thinks is happening is that I’m not actually getting a concussion every single time that this is happening,” she added. “He thinks it’s setting off what’s called migraine aura, where you just lose big chunks of your vision, and it’s called cortical spreading depression. Where I guess your neurons get overly excited and depolarize and shut down in a wave, and that’s why I lose chunks of my vision when I’m getting hit.”

“I was telling him about my history, and as a kid, I would get migraines all the time, and epilepsy runs in my family. Every generation of my family, someone’s had epilepsy, and there’s some sort of link between epilepsy and migraines. He was saying that people that get migraines are more susceptible to getting concussions, and the more concussions I get, the easier it is to get a migraine.

“To me, I was like, ‘I’m not dying! CTE isn’t coming to get me!’ There’s actually stuff we can do about it.

“At first, we couldn’t find any preventative migraine medication, it’s usually stuff to be used after the fact.

“Just recently, we’ve been able to find something that I can take that’s preventative that will hopefully be able to resolve this issue for me. It’s life-changing.”