Bert Kreischer on his podcast.<\/a> \u201cYou look at WWE and they have such a reverence for their legends. In MMA, it\u2019s like the second that you\u2019re not on top, you\u2019re not shit and you never were shit.\u201d<\/p>\nRousey said she learned a valuable lesson after moving from UFC to WWE, and she saw the dramatic difference in how fans treated legends of professional wrestling versus her counterparts in the UFC.<\/p>\n
While past superstars like Triple H, Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker are still frequently celebrated in WWE, Rousey saw how quickly fans and media abandoned all-time great UFC champions after losses.<\/p>\n
\u201cChuck Liddell, when he\u2019s on top, \u2018He\u2019s the best, he\u2019s the best.\u2019 The second that he loses, \u2018Oh Chuck Liddell ain\u2019t shit, he never was shit,\u2019\u201d Rousey said. \u201c\u2018Rampage\u2019 Jackson, oh my god he\u2019s the next Mike Tyson, he\u2019s so great!\u2019 The second he loses, \u2018Rampage\u2019 ain\u2019t shit, he never was shit. [Georges St-Pierre], \u2018Oh he loses, he\u2019s not shit, he never was shit.\u2019 Anderson Silva, oh my God he was almost like a mythical creature for a while. He was like this ninja, and he would hypnotize everyone in front of him. The second he loses, \u2018Anderson ain\u2019t shit, he never was shit.\u2019 Fedor Emelianenko, one of the greatest ever. The second he loses, \u2018Fedor ain\u2019t shit, he never was shit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Rousey specifically addressed the fandom surrounding former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and how he maintains such respect and honor even after retirement.<\/p>\n
She believes it all really boils down to Nurmagomedov retiring undefeated while still holding onto a UFC title because one loss likely would have changed everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the only reason why MMA fans have their lips so firmly planted at the base of Khabib\u2019s c*ck is because he retired before he reached his limit,\u201d Rousey said. \u201cIf he kept fighting until he reached his limit, everybody would be \u2018Khabib ain\u2019t shit, he never was shit\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re like that with everybody. Name one person. \u2018Brock [Lesnar] ain\u2019t shit, he never was shit.\u2019 Name one past champion that has the kind of respect that the current champions do. It\u2019s really sad because I think it encourages people to get out while they\u2019re peaking and leaving and taking all of that equity with them instead of passing it on to whoever\u2019s next to take up the mantle.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it came to her own career, Rousey often spoke about retiring undefeated because she wanted to go down as the greatest of all time but it turns out her motivation ran a little deeper than that.<\/p>\n
Rousey hoped by leaving the sport without a single blemish on her r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that she would be remembered fondly and with great esteem from fighters, fans, and media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to retire undefeated because I was so afraid of everything that I accomplished is going to be nothing if I ever lose,\u201d Rousey said. \u201cSo I have to retire undefeated. It wasn\u2019t until I got into the WWE and saw that wait, you have to retire on a loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody in WWE has to retire on a loss because you have to pass that torch on, and I think everyone in MMA, they\u2019re going to try to take the torch with them because of how the fans respond to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Rousey\u2019s objections, fighters mostly retire off losses rather than wins, but she believes that could change for some of the most notable champions, especially if they want to leave a legacy behind.<\/p>\n
Add to that, Rousey feels like most of the people talking about MMA have never actually done the sport and that they lack perspective on what athletes actually go through.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fans, a lot of them have never fought,\u201d Rousey said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like football where a lot of people who watch have done football. They don\u2019t understand how short your shelf life is and how every fight changes you. Even if the fight you came out unscathed, you didn\u2019t come out of the training camp unscathed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t keep it up for very long. It\u2019s just the human body. You\u2019re taking impact to the head. This is your f*cking brain. We can\u2019t make your brain stronger or more calloused. There\u2019s a limit to how much you can take. As soon as anybody reaches that limit, you ain\u2019t shit, you never were shit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronda Rousey believes the sport of MMA has a real problem when it comes to how legends are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-251054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}