Ronda Rousey has been very open about her concussion history as she’s embarked on a career as an author.
The former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) champion has put her competitive days behind her seemingly for good. Of course, you can never say never in combat sports or professional wrestling, but Rousey has already put a lot of focus in her writing this past year.
Rousey, 37, returned to the media spotlight for several promotional tours before the release of her latest memoir, Our Fight. In those appearances, Rousey revealed her reoccurring dealings with concussions, which ultimately led to her retirement after her first and only losses in mixed martial arts (MMA), knockouts from Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes. However, according to Rousey, they were actually a lifelong issue.
“If the concussions weren’t an issue, things would’ve happened completely differently,” Rousey told CBS Sports. “Accumulative neurological injury is something people don’t talk about in MMA. It’s something that everybody is dealing with at a different pace. I started dealing with it at six years old. I started getting concussions much earlier on in swimming. Two kids doing a backstroke in the other direction crack heads or hit the wall doing the backstroke.
“I started doing judo at a young age and kept getting concussions regularly and multiple times a year and not being allowed to speak up or say anything about it,” she continued. “As a fighter, you’re not supposed to show any weakness or talk about things like that or the inevitable neurological decline that comes with taking headshots. A lot of people talk about it as if it’s making excuses or weakness.”
Rousey retired from MMA in early 2017 after the aforementioned loss to Nunes that came in 48 seconds at UFC 207 in December 2016. Although she went on to have a solid run in WWE afterward, Rousey knew she could no longer stick around in the sport she made her name in even if she wanted to.
“I have a whole list for my life to think about, and you’ll never know when you take one hit too many until many decades later,” Rousey said. “But I also don’t think I would be serving the sport or the division the right way if I stuck around too long. I got to a point where I knew that I literally could not be taking those head impacts and continue to compete at that same level. It doesn’t do the sport any favor. It’s a bad look on women’s MMA in general. I am the representative of that sport.”