Breaking her silence. In her first interview following her epic loss to Holly Holm last month, UFC fighter Ronda Rousey opened up to ESPN magazine about the shocking defeat and her current state of mind in a story published Tuesday, Dec. 8.
“I’m just really f–king sad,” the superstar athlete told the mag. “I need to come back. I need to beat this chick. Who knows if I’m going to pop my teeth out or break my jaw or rip my lip open. I have to f–king do it.”
In the interim, she’s off the grid. “I’ve turned off my phone,” Rousey, 28, admitted. “I haven’t looked at it. I’ve just been having long conversations with Mochi [her 7-year-old Argentinian mastiff].”
And she’s been thinking about the fateful UFC 193 match last month in Australia against defending bantamweight titleholder Holm. “I was thinking, ‘On the bright side, I’m more like crushed idealism and sardonic sense of humor now,'” Rousey told ESPN. “I got hit in that first round . . . I cut my lip open and knocked a couple of my teeth loose. I was out on my feet from the very beginning. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I had that huge cut in my mouth and I just spit [the blood] out at my feet. Then they brought the bucket over and I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I spit it in the bucket?’ I never spit on the ground.”
Despite the shaky foundation laid out for the remainder of the fight, Rousey recalled her determination to continue. “It was like a dumbed-down dreamy version of yourself making decisions . . . I was just trying to shake myself out of it. I kept saying to myself, ‘You’re okay, keep fighting. You’re okay, keep fighting,'” she recalled to ESPN. “I just feel so embarrassed. How I fought after that is such an embarrassing representation of myself. I wasn’t even f–king there.”
Prior to their Nov. 14 match, Rousey talked a lot of trash about her opponent Holm, 34, and even refused to touch gloves beforehand. “It was just like a reaction,” Rousey told ESPN about the touchy touching-gloves topic. “I was like, ‘The last time I saw you [at the weigh-in], you were putting your fist on my chin and trying to get a cheap hit on me, then you turn around and you want to touch gloves? You have to be one way or the other. So if you want to be that way with me, that’s the way it is.'”
Eventually, Holm knocked her out with a blow to the head in the second round of the fight. “It’s not my responsibility to make everything I say idiot-proof. If a dumbass can’t understand it, then I’m not going to spend my time putting everything I think into layman’s terms,” Rousey told the mag. In the days following her defeat, Rousey and her boyfriend, Travis Browne, drove 15 hours to a Texas ranch for a trip originally intended as a celebratory vacation. While Rousey wanted to hide, her loved ones told her it was time to come out from the woods.
“I always say you have to be willing to get your heart broken. That’s just what f–king happens when you try . . .” she dished. “It wasn’t long before [my family] was stopping by and telling me that I can’t hide my whole life. I have to do something with myself. Turn on my cellphone and stop ignoring everyone.”
Last Thursday, Dec. 3, UFC president Dana White confirmed that Rousey will get a rematch against Holm. Though vulnerable, Rousey said she had to get back in the ring. “I always think I can lose all of them. I’m the only one that’s scared when I walk in there. I’m always f–king scared,” she dished, adding that she has no other choice than to fight.
“Of course,” she concluded. “What else am I going to f–king do?”
