Ronda Rousey doesn’t want to hear another word about how old she is as she prepares to fight for the first time in nearly a decade.
When fight fans last saw Rousey in the cage it was at UFC 207 in December 2016, when she suffered a 48-second knockout loss to Amanda Nunes. Since then, Rousey has flirted with retirement without officially hanging up the gloves, starred as a headlining professional wrestling act for WWE, and acted in a few major Hollywood movies.
She returns to action on May 16 against
fellow women’s MMA pioneer Gina Carano—herself, coming off of a near 17-year break—live on Netflix, and while the legends matchup has garnered plenty of attention, it’s also earned its fair share of criticism especially considering Rousey and Carano’s lengthy layoffs.
Rousey wonders why her combat readiness is being questioned.
“I never hear Jon Jones’ age being brought up as a disqualifying factor,” Rousey told CBS Mornings. “It’s not like my ovaries are fighting. You know what I mean? Why are we even talking about this?”
In her prime, Rousey was one of the most dominant fighters in all of MMA. She successfully defended the UFC bantamweight title six consecutive times, often needing less than a minute to finish her opponents. While becoming one of the UFC’s biggest draws, Rousey also became a mainstream celebrity.
However, with her last two fights ending in memorable knockout losses, Rousey has always felt that something was missing in regards to her saying farewell to fighting.
“There was kind of like a cascade of things that led to it, but largely I wanted to rewrite my own ending in MMA,” Rousey said of her reasons for coming back. “It was just unfinished. I never formally retired. Dana said I retired and I hadn’t fought in, like, 10 years, so I think I needed everyone to kind of give up on me coming back before I knew I was coming back just for me.”
For now, it appears Rousey’s return is planned to be a one-off, with the fighter wanting to go out on her own terms. As for what she hopes to accomplish, Rousey believes enough time has passed for her to find her love for the game again and exit on a positive note.
“I think I want to be able to change all my prior negative associations that I had in MMA,” Rousey said. “I think everything just kind of got convoluted and it became about so many other things I had I feel like the world on my shoulders and I’d lost sight of what I’d really loved about martial arts. I think that getting back to it and making joy in the process the priority has been the best decision I’ve ever made besides marrying my husband.”
