Rousey Explains Which Is Harder Between MMA & Pro Wrestling

Ronda Rousey holds firm on the stance that mixed martial arts (MMA) is more difficult than professional wrestling.

“The Rowdy One” was recently a guest on WWE Hall Of Famer Kurt Angle’s podcast, “The Kurt Angle Show,” to discuss her amazing combat sports and professional wrestling careers. Rousey has reached the top of the mountain in both realms.

However, speaking to which is more difficult, Rousey was adamant that life inside the cage is more taxing than inside the professional wrestling ring. For herself specifically, the sense of realism MMA brings to the table is a completely different factor.

“And that is what makes it real to me, you know, like injuries, I don’t care, you know, people get injured all the time playing Pirates of Penzance, you know. Like, there’s a lot of difficult physical things out there that the realism to me is like that extreme anxiety.

“And I remember leading up to the Bethe Correia fight I was like, every single time I go into a fight I’m like Why do I do this? Why do I do this to myself? This is the absolute worst, I hate it.

“And then like, afterward, I was, you know, giving everybody high fives all the way out. This is Rocky 4 man!

“That those highs and lows and this, you know, peaks and valleys and the crazy anxiety with a huge payoff or you know, the huge not payoff is what really makes it real for me, not like injuries and stuff like that. I don’t know how I got down that path.”

While Rousey obviously loves professional wrestling, she loves real competition just as much, if not more. It’s not something you truly get in the world of professional wrestling. Because inside the ring, you’re actually working with your opponent, rather than against them.

“But yeah, it’s much more difficult to doing actual competition than staged competition, which I absolutely love. Because we get to do all of the fun parts of like, what’s the coolest way this fight could possibly go?

“Like I remember always thinking to myself that I wanted to do a Sode Tsurikomi Goshi, which is a throw that I didn’t do all the time in MMA. Now think of all the different ways that I would get to do it, and it just never came up, you know.

“But like in wrestling, I get to do it all the time. I get to do all the matches that like yeah, you know what I mean? You can make the fight as entertaining as possible. Instead of like, what? It just ends. And fun.

“Why is it bad to say it’s like fun? If people ask like, easy I’m like, yeah, it’s physically difficult. But everyone’s working together to make sure it works out. It’s not like everybody is conspiring against you to stop you from reaching your goal, you know, in that moment.”

Ronda Rousey is the current WWE Smackdown women’s champion and a former Raw women’s champion. In MMA, she was the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion before reaching household name status in the UFC during her two-year bantamweight title run.

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Quotes via Inside The Ropes

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