{"id":668491,"date":"2026-05-14T08:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668491\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:08:11","slug":"ronda-rousey-back-for-redemption-as-she-fights-gina-carano-in-mma-bout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668491\/","title":{"rendered":"Ronda Rousey back for redemption as she fights Gina Carano in MMA bout"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ronda Rousey retired from the UFC after a career that saw her defend her title six times, she felt like she had lost her love for the sport.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s what I was missing towards the end of my career \u2026 I just didn’t want to be there anymore,” the former bantamweight UFC champion told ABC Sport Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I was just dragging myself into the arena for other reasons outside of myself.”<\/p>\n

\"Ronda<\/p>\n

Ronda Rousey (left) will take on Gina Carano in an MMA bout. (Getty Images: Sarah Stier)<\/p>\n

After almost a decade away from the ring, Rousey is set to return this weekend, at age 39, to fight Gina Carano in an MMA bout.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

This time, Rousey feels like she will be doing it for herself.<\/p>\n

“This is my chance to really change all of those prior associations and make this thing mine again,” she said.<\/p>\n

Rousey ended her career with successive losses, the first of which was in Australia in 2015.<\/p>\n

Before that, the UFC Hall of Famer was undefeated.<\/p>\n

When she took on Holly Holm in 2015 it was in front of a record crowd of 56,214 spectators crammed into Docklands, all of whom were waiting to see a title fight between two of the sport’s best.<\/p>\n

\"Ronda<\/p>\n

Ronda Rousey (left) lost to Holly Holm in Melbourne back in 2015. (Getty Images: Pat Scala)<\/p>\n

The bout was over just 59 seconds into the second round, when a roundhouse kick from Holm earned her a knockout victory and left Rousey questioning her future in the sport.<\/p>\n

“I just honestly didn’t want to be there,” Rousey said.<\/p>\n

“I was [feeling] the pressure to sell out Etihad Stadium (Docklands), the biggest stadium in the southern hemisphere and in a country that I wasn’t from.<\/p>\n

“I was just so worn out.”<\/p>\n

Rousey ready for ‘dream fight’<\/p>\n

Rousey took a year away from fighting, but when re-entering the octagon she was dispatched in just 48 seconds at the hands of Amanda Nunes.<\/p>\n

It was her second career defeat and she was done.<\/p>\n

Carano, Rousey’s opponent in Los Angeles on Sunday AEST, last fought in 2009 but has remained in the headlines for a series of controversial social media posts.<\/p>\n

Gina Carano fired from The Mandalorian<\/a><\/p>\n

The actor and former MMA fighter likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the US political climate in a since-deleted social media post.<\/p>\n

She has copped criticism online for posts about a range of topics, including suggesting churches and businesses should open during the COVID-19 lockdowns and sharing memes about voter fraud in the wake of Joe Biden’s 2020 US presidential election win.<\/p>\n

The online backlash was enough to have her removed from the cast of The Mandalorian<\/a>, with Lucasfilm releasing a statement that said in part: “Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”<\/p>\n

It was this “cancellation” that drew Rousey to Carano as an opponent for the first MMA event put on by MVP, the promotion company co-owned by Jake Paul.<\/p>\n

“I saw a video of Gina after she got cancelled. She was just really not healthy and not looking good,” Rousey said.<\/p>\n

“I knew that there was something that me and Gina had that would be huge \u2026 us, like reclaiming our bodily identities, us both having a redemption story, and just the combination of us two being a dream fight and being able to rewrite our endings in the sport together.<\/p>\n

“It just seemed like a no-brainer.”<\/p>\n

‘All about the experience’<\/p>\n

The prospect of getting back in the arena is clearly something that excites Rousey, despite feeling her experience with the UFC was soured by the end of her career.<\/p>\n

“I think before it \u2026 everything was result-based and the experience be damned,” she said.<\/p>\n

“This time it’s been all about the experience and making it the best experience possible, which has incidentally led me to the best results and the best output that I could possibly have.<\/p>\n

“I finally realised that I’d been going about it backwards all along, but better late than never, I guess”.<\/p>\n

\"Ronda<\/p>\n

Ronda Rousey and Travis Browne with their eldest daughter La’akea Makalapuaokalanip\u014d in 2022. (Getty Images\/FilmMagic: Jeff Kravitz)<\/p>\n

As for whether we see the mother of two fighting regularly again?<\/p>\n

“We had such beautiful babies, and I just need to have more if I can, and I just can’t be making any more detours,” said Rousey, who is married to MMA fighter Travis Browne.<\/p>\n

“I have to get to business. So that’s what we want to do and try to do as a family.<\/p>\n

“And, fingers crossed, hopefully it works out for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ronda Rousey retired from the UFC after a career that saw her defend her title six times,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[155615,49,48,7337,641,146728,32287,638,246528,695,1867,82,772],"class_list":["post-668491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-bantamweight","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-comeback","tag-fighting","tag-gina-carano","tag-holly-holm","tag-mma","tag-octagon","tag-return","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668491","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=668491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}