Ronda Rousey had a lot of reasons to return to fighting 10 years after back-to-back losses in the UFC and ending her career on a win was a huge part of that.<\/p>\n
But as much as Rousey clamored for the chance to finally face Gina Carano \u2014 a fight the UFC attempted to put together over a decade ago \u2014 her 17-second armbar submission win almost felt hollow when it was all over. For all the talk about Carano dropping 100 pounds to get in shape for the fight, and spending months training under the same coaches and fighters who work with former UFC champions like Merab Dvalishvili, she looked completely overmatched when the action started.<\/p>\n
Carano gave up a takedown almost instantaneously and then fell into an armbar from Rousey that ended the fight just 17 seconds into the first round. Afterwards, Rousey retired from the sport again but this time she gets to go out on a win instead of two brutal knockout losses but fellow UFC veteran Matt Brown just doesn\u2019t see how she can really celebrate that kind of performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me personally and I think I speak for a lot of people, there was no redeeming qualities for this card, in terms of making us [bigger] fans of Ronda,\u201d Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. \u201cI don\u2019t like how she carried herself. I don\u2019t like how she spoke. I think she\u2019s a narcissist, and I think she\u2019s got a lot of mental issues, and I think she maybe needs to go to therapy or something.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she said she\u2019s coming back for money, I get it. You\u2019re prize fighting. Come back get a bag. There\u2019s no redeeming quality about winning this fight. You fought someone that hasn\u2019t fought in 17 years. What are you proud of? There\u2019s nothing to be proud of there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown says his problem with Rousey\u2019s approach to her comeback started with the way she chose to promote the fight, which was mainly built around bashing her former employers at the UFC and then taking aim at other fighters like current bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison.<\/p>\n
Of course, Rousey also spent a lot of time lobbing insults at UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell, who she effectively blamed for passing on the Carano fight when it was first presented as a possible matchup.<\/p>\n
When it came to her actual opponent, Rousey could only gush about Carano as a person and they were much more likely to hug each other than get into a fiery faceoff before the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she\u2019s just kind of a narcissistic person and nothing about this really felt good, in my opinion,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe whole thing with this fight card, I don\u2019t think anybody would disagree that this whole fight card from beginning to end was kind of cringe as f*ck. Ronda was just the cringiest person ever with her [mean mugging] the whole time and looking so angry and all the buildup, all the shit she said leading up to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking so much shit to Hunter Campbell and this kind of vengeful personality that she has and all this anger and frustration. You really just need to go to therapy. You need a friend and some people to help you just calm down. Learn some stoicism and shit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown had faith enough prior to the event to pick Carano to win but that was largely based around his belief that she had been training and staying ready for a fight even when she was putting most of her focus on her acting career.<\/p>\n
The way the fight played out, Carano looked every bit the part of somebody who hadn\u2019t fought or even trained much over the past 17 years.<\/p>\n
In other words, Carano actually had very little chance to win and Rousey just overwhelmed her.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing back and beating someone that hasn\u2019t fought in 17 years, that was a good matchup for you even 17 years ago, you shouldn\u2019t feel so great about that,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIf you\u2019re coming back for the money, cool, a lot of people do things for money and I respect that.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome back because you say you want to get a win, come on. What are we supposed to feel about that? Do we feel good for her? Just cringe from top to bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to her return to action on Saturday, Rousey spoke about her contentious relationship with the sport after she left the UFC and how she wasn\u2019t even sure she could attend an event without getting viciously booed by the crowd.<\/p>\n
Part of Rousey\u2019s problem after her final two fights in the UFC is that she largely just disappeared from the spotlight and never directly addressed the losses. Even in the buildup to her fight on Saturday, Rousey spoke often about leaving the sport off a win this time around but she rarely, if ever mentioned Holly Holm or Amanda Nunes \u00ad\u2014 the two fighters who beat her in those back-to-back losses.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Brown believes Rousey missed a golden opportunity to make up for past mistakes when she was promoting the Carano fight but none of that seemed to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what sucks,\u201d Brown explained. \u201cThis was kind of an opportunity for her to redeem herself for the fans and for the community in general. She certainly did not do that at all. At least I felt that way. Maybe other people feel different. Maybe they see some redeeming qualities there. For me, I felt like it was the same old Ronda, the same old story we\u2019ve heard a million times.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it\u2019s not interesting. It\u2019s not interesting, and it\u2019s not fun. Some of the comments talking about Khamzat [Chimaev], it\u2019s not interesting to me. She had it written down in her pocket. It\u2019s not exciting. It does not feel authentic. I really think she\u2019s a narcissist, and she needs some damn therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Rousey already retiring again with plans to grow her family with husband Travis Browne, there\u2019s a chance she once again disappears from the spotlight when it comes to combat sports.<\/p>\n
Rousey did tease her interest in continuing to work with Jake Paul\u2019s Most Valuable Promotions in some sort of executive role but she promised her fighting career is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to love Ronda. This was her opportunity \u2014 another of her thousand opportunities \u2014 but this was a huge opportunity for her to create a lot of love for her,\u201d Brown said. \u201cShe could have gotten even more views if she came out all humble and just speaking properly and not making it about Hunter Campbell and the UFC. Not making it about trying to go out on a win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho the f*ck is doing her [public relations]? She\u2019s got the fame and the money, she\u2019s got to have a f*cking PR person in her ear saying \u2018look, just speak like this.\u2019 Even if you fake it. Even if we can see through all the f*cking fake bullshit, you say it. Just f*cking say half-right things. She just can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, and iHeartRadio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronda Rousey had a lot of reasons to return to fighting 10 years after back-to-back losses in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,45518,270175,324901,1591,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-680840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-mmaf-podcast-network","tag-mvp-mma","tag-mvp-mma-news","tag-podcasts","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680840","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=680840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}