UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey insists that she doesn’t care about how some fans perceived her after coaching on season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter since she put the needs of her fighters first.
The “Rowdy” one explained her position in a recent interview with Fighters Only, where she was critical of arch nemesis Miesha Tate, who coached opposite the champ on the reality series.
Regardless of what everyone thinks of me and how I come off – everyone might think that I’m a crazy, psycho, competitive bitch – I promise you, you can go up and ask anyone who was on my team how I was as a coach, and they will 100% say I did the best I possibly could under the circumstances. All I thought about was them. I obsessed over them, and whereas Miesha was spending a lot more time worried that her hair looked good for every shot, I was freaking out making sure that everyone was okay.
Rousey was criticized for being overly competitive and showing a lack of sportsmanship on the show, particularly by eventual winner Julianna Pena.
The 26-year-old California native meets Tate for a second time at UFC 168 later this month, serving as the pay-per-view event’s co-headlining bout.
Tate, then the Strikeforce bantamweight champ, and Rousey first met inside the cage in March of last year, with Rousey winning with a gruesome version of her signature armbar at the tail end of the first round.
Rousey enters the title tilt with an unblemished 7-0 record, defeating all of her opponents thus far with a first round armbar.
Meanwhile, “Cupcake” is 1-1 since fighting Rousey the first time, submitting Julie Kedzie and getting TKO’ed by Cat Zingano in her UFC debut.
Will fans get a repeat result of the first bout, or will Tate implement a new game plan and pull off a stunning upset?
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com.
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