Ronda Rousey is partly fueled at UFC 190 by comments Bethe Correia made about Rousey possibly killing herself if she loses. Rousey’s father committed suicide when she was a child.
Correia has apologized for the over-the-line remark, but said she had no idea how Rousey’s father died. Rousey doesn’t buy that and neither does UFC president Dana White.
“She absolutely did,” White said on The Doug Gottlieb Show this week. “She’s been playing that game. There’s people that are really good at playing the head games. Conor McGregor is one of the best I’ve ever seen. And Bethe has been doing that for sure. But Ronda is a tough one to do it with. Ronda is one of the most mentally strong human beings I’ve ever met in my life.”
More Coverage: UFC 190 Results | UFC news
Rousey defends her UFC women’s bantamweight title against Correia in the main event of UFC 190 on Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro. She is a massive favorite and has vowed to punish the Brazilian for her words.
In an interview with Combate in May, Correia talked about Rousey’s recently released autobiography, My Fight/Your Fight, and made reference to Rousey’s depression and substance abuse after the Olympics.
“She is not mentally healthy, she needs to take care of herself,” Correia said. “She is winning, so everybody is around her cheering her up, but when she realizes she is not everything that she believes she is, I don’t know what might happen. I hope she does not kill herself later on.”
Rousey fired back on Twitter after that and has been brutal about her intentions in interviews since, saying she’s going to prolong the beating as long as she can to teach Correia a lesson.
“She already got the fight,” Rousey said at a media day at her Glendale Fighting Club gym two weeks ago. “There was already enough heat behind the fight. It was entirely unnecessary. To bring my family into it, they don’t deserve that and they didn’t ask for that. I need to make sure nobody else tries that ever again.”
White said that Rousey would be playing with fire if she tries to extend the fight in any way against Correia.
“If you watch Bethe train, she’s got knockout power, man,” White said. “Anybody with heavy hands and knockout power can change everything in one punch.
“There’s never a case where you should go in and let somebody stay in the fight.”