Time heals all wounds.
So does money, which is probably why Ricky Lundell, who coached Miesha Tate against Ronda Rousey and her squad of UFC hopefuls on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 18, is now training “Rowdy” for her combat sports comeback against Gina Carano on May 16 in Los Angeles.
For those of you newer fans, TUF 18 was the season of racist unibrows, Irish three-ways, and unplugged PR machines.
“We were mortal enemies,” the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion said of her past relationship with
Lundell during her latest YouTube blog. “Started off as mortal enemies. He was coaching against me on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and he was so nice I was like, ‘This motherf*cker is so patronizing and fake.’ And I hated his guts. It was like the monkey in the closet from ‘Family Guy.’ That was me to Ricky all the time.”
Sounds like the hate was fairly one-sided.
So what changed? Lundell was training then-UFC heavyweight Travis Browne when “Hapa” traveled to Glendale, Calif., home base for Rousey, prior to Browne’s romantic relationship with “Rowdy” (they would eventually marry). Slowly but surely Rousey started to come around.
“I have to say that I’ve always loved Ronda’s technique,” Lundell explained. “It was an honor to even be a part of the first Ultimate Fighter ever to feature women. I was just so excited. I was getting to see women’s MMA step into a new stage. Just even be a part of that on either side and to be able to support that was just so exciting for me. And then, as time progressed, I was just so excited to be able to even hang with Ronda, because she’s so talented. She’s so good. And so time just kept going by, and I was always excited to learn, to learn things from Ronda, and experience time with Ronda on the mat. I’m very thankful for that.”
The Carano fight will mark Rousey’s first MMA bout in nearly a decade.
