stepping away from MMA in 2018<\/a>. Her exit from the sport left many fans frustrated, especially after she avoided media obligations following her losses and largely disappeared from the MMA spotlight for years.<\/p>\nBut according to Rousey, even her downfall served a bigger purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everything happens for a reason \u2014 the exact way it was meant to go,\u201d Rousey told Ariel Helwani. \u201cI think I was not meant to win the Olympics, so that I would still have the fire in me to come into MMA and to pave a way for women in the sport. I believe I did not obtain my goal of retiring undefeated because it was the best thing for the sport for me not to leave with my equity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned through professional wrestling that a champion retiring with the belt is one of the worst things that could happen to a division,\u201d Rousey continued. \u201cI mean, just look at what happened to the 145-pound division. I think it was meant to go that way so that I would be brought back to MMA \u2014 not to just serve myself and my own career but to change the entire landscape of the sport because of this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, regardless of how fans feel about Rousey now, there\u2019s no denying her impact. She helped bring women into the UFC spotlight, became one of the biggest stars the sport has ever seen, and opened doors for countless fighters who came after her.<\/p>\n
Now, nearly a decade after walking away, \u201cRowdy\u201d gets one more chance to shape the narrative.<\/p>\n
For much more on \u201cRousey vs. Carano\u201d checkout our comprehensive archive right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was all part of the plan. Rousey has not competed since Dec. 2016, when she suffered a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,197642,82,3194],"class_list":["post-663534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-ronda-rousey-vs-gina-carano-netflix-news-hub","tag-sports","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}