While the entire gaze of the combat sports world was fixated on the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor spectacle from Las Vegas last Saturday night, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was quietly getting married to UFC heavyweight Travis Browne. The ceremony certainly may have been booked on that date for a reason, as Rousey […]
While the entire gaze of the combat sports world was fixated on the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor spectacle from Las Vegas last Saturday night, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was quietly getting married to UFC heavyweight Travis Browne.
The ceremony certainly may have been booked on that date for a reason, as Rousey has clearly withdrawn from the constant media machine that she believed betrayed her in the days following her shocking upset loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193. That lead to a self-imposed media ban before her return at last December’s UFC 207, where she lost a brutal 48-second fight to current champion Amanda Nunes.
So it’s little surprise that Rousey wanted hardly any attention on her wedding ceremony to Glendale Fighting Club teammate Browne, and that’s lead to precious few photos being released from the event. One did surface from personal photographer Layzie The Savage on Instagram, however, depicting him with Rousey in her dress. Check it out here:
Recently, former UFC women’s champion Ronda Rousey has appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tapings, leading to speculation that ‘Rowdy’ would soon begin a career in pro-wrestling after losing her last two bouts in the octagon. Rousey has been out of action since a first-round TKO loss to current UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes in […]
Recently, former UFC women’s champion Ronda Rousey has appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tapings, leading to speculation that ‘Rowdy’ would soon begin a career in pro-wrestling after losing her last two bouts in the octagon.
Rousey has been out of action since a first-round TKO loss to current UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes in the main event of last December’s UFC 207, a loss that followed her shocking knockout at the feet of Holly Holm in her previous bout at UFC 193.
It’s widely believed the women’s MMA pioneer will never return to compete in MMA, and UFC President Dana White, a good friend of Rousey’s, has repeatedly stated he believes it to be true in interviews. The rumors of her foray into the WWE only serve to give weight to that view, and apparently, she’s becoming quite involved with pro-wrestling.
A well-known lifelong fan, Rousey has already entered into training with the WWE according to Fightful.com (via MMA Mania):
“According to sources, WWE had referred Rousey and company to current superstar Brian Kendrick for training purposes in Southern California. There was also buzz backstage at the tournament — mainly among WWE employees and contractors — that Rousey’s training would start soon. She’s taken some basic bumps among other things thus far.”
Rousey’s ‘Forse Horsewomen’ teammate Shayna Baszler recently competed in and won two matches in ‘The Mae Young Classic,’ a WWE tournament consisting of female competitors, for which Rousey was present ringside, prompting speculation that some sort of angle involving Rousey, Baszler, and the other two ‘Horsewomen,’ Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir versus a team of the top female wrestlers in WWE.
That would be a huge draw for WWE, and based on the situation where they ‘lent’ Brock Lesnar to the UFC so he could face Mark Hunt at UFC 200 last summer, it certainly isn’t a far-fetched possibility in that regard. Rousey doesn’t seem to want to return to fighting, at least not anytime soon, so a stint with the WWE where she’d be an obvious huge attraction without taking any more unnecessary punishment could be a welcome direction for her career.
And with her personal website recently revealing “Big news,” this could be what they were referring to. Stay tuned.
It looks like Ronda Rousey could potentially be returning to the ring, although not for a MMA fight. According to a report from Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting, Rousey appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tapings at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, last Thursday and Friday to support her longtime friend and training partner, […]
It looks like Ronda Rousey could potentially be returning to the ring, although not for a MMA fight.
According to a report from Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting, Rousey appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tapings at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, last Thursday and Friday to support her longtime friend and training partner, former UFC bantamweight Shayna Baszler.
Things started out calm enough in Thursday evening according to the report, as Baszler won her opening-round match in the Mae Young Classic, a 32-woman tournament. But from that point, the fostering of a feud began, as Rousey sat ringside with Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir, the other two members of “Rowdy” and Baszler’s oft-publicized “Four Horsewomen” group.
Of course, the group name stems from the ultra-popular “Four Horsemen” stable of the 1980s consisting of legendary champion Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and several other members. Rousey and her stablemates used their version, but apparently never trademarked it, as WWE soon marketed a stable of women wrestlers including Flair’s daughter Charlotte Flair, whose real name is Ashley Fliehr, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Becky Lynch as their own version of the “Four Horsewomen.”
So although Rousey and her “Four Horsewomen” group’s role was unclear, it became clear after Baszler won her second-round tournament match over Mia Kim with a MMA-inspired choke and flaunted a four-finger “Four Horsewomen” taunt directed at Flair, Lynch, and Bayley (Banks was in Australia working on a promotional tour for WWE). Both groups of women got into a bit of a smack-talking match, although it remains to be seen just how far this angle will proceed.
Meltzer said a WWE official called it, “foreshadowing in essence, just in case.”
The bit will reportedly not air until this September, but Rousey’s love of and history with pro-wrestling has been well documented. During the height of her popularity, she appeared alongside mega-famous actor and former WWE champion Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to mix it up with WWE executives and personalities Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at 2015’s WrestleMania, and the WWE has made no effort to hide their infatuation with Rousey, who herself is a longtime professional wrestling fanatic.
The Vince McMahon-owned pro-wrestling juggernaut reportedly wanted Rousey to wrestle Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania in 2016, something that never came to fruition after she lost her long-held UFC title in a shocking knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November 2015. Now that Rousey appears to be done with the UFC for the time being, an opportunity for her to appear in her beloved pro-wrestling, where she would engage in scripted physical activity rather than get punched by the most dangerous 135-pound female fighters on the planet, could be an obvious choice for her next career move post-UFC.
Baszler has been involved with pro-wrestling for quite some time, having trained with several of the WWE’s female wrestlers during the time following her retirement from MMA, and has supposedly been seeking employment with the WWE for quite some time. She was also trained in both pro-wrestling in addition to catch wrestling by former UFC champion Josh Barnett.
Although it was thought that she had not been signed to the promotion, Baszler has now been booked to be one of the performers at the forefront of the Mae Young Classic, where she will wrestle Japan’s Kaire Sane in the finals on September 12, a date during which the storyline involving Rousey is expected to continue.
So nothing is set, but it appears Rousey’s next trip to a ring could potentially be in the WWE. Do you like that direction for her career, or would it better to give MMA and the UFC one last shot?
Ronda Rousey appeared in her first public interview since her TKO loss to Amanda Nunes in the main event of last December’s UFC 207, but it wasn’t to talk about anything related to her up-in-the-air UFC future. Instead, Rousey discussed her new coaching role on ABC’s ‘Battle of the Network Stars’ on ‘Live With Kelly […]
Ronda Rousey appeared in her first public interview since her TKO loss to Amanda Nunes in the main event of last December’s UFC 207, but it wasn’t to talk about anything related to her up-in-the-air UFC future.
Instead, Rousey discussed her new coaching role on ABC’s ‘Battle of the Network Stars’ on ‘Live With Kelly and Ryan’ this morning (Wed., July 5, 2017), and talk then shifted to her engagement to UFC heavyweight Travis Browne before taking a turn for the strange.
Apparently, some thugs broke into Rousey’s home while she and Browne were on vacation in New Zealand, which is where ‘Hapa’ popped the question. And the vandals got away with quite the haul, even if it didn’t end well for them (quotes transcribed by MMA Weekly):
We stopped by the house right before we were going to go to the airport and he was going to sneak away and go ask my mom for permission but right when we got to the house, we realized we were robbed. Someone had been squatting in my house for like three days, sleeping in my bed.
“[They] stole my Olympic rings, stole my guns, stole all my precious jewelry, every headphone in the house, credit cards.”
Rousey explained that her security cameras caught the criminals with shocking ease, as the not-so-smart robbers were skaters who frequented a nearby skate park in their home base of Venice, Calif. With the cam footage aiding him, Rousey revealed how quickly Browne tracked them down, being ever-so-careful to not physically assault the criminals:
“We have security cameras so we looked back at them and we saw that they were a bunch of kids with skateboards and there’s a famous skate park right across the street cause we’re in Venice. So my man’s 6’7” like 260 [pounds], he like beelines it straight to the skateboard park, finds the guys right away.
“He’s smart enough not to [hit them], we’ll get sued pretty hard, but he found the police right then and they caught them.”
But even though the situation ended up as well as it could have for the embattled former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, it still understandably doesn’t sit well with the onetime queen of MMA. She thinks the robbers knew it was her house for sure, something that is probably the case after she was previously tagged with graffiti shortly after her latest defeat earlier this year:
“They knew it was my house,” Rousey said. “There’s no way you can’t not know it’s my house. What little punks.”
So Rousey was able to find some just desserts for the squatters who robbed her of her valued possessions, and is now set to resume her career in the limelight on major network television. Add that to her engagement to Browne and her life is obviously full even without any discussion of the sport she ruled with an iron fist.
The legions of fans who once thought she could defeat many of the male bantamweights fighting in the UFC would most likely like an explanation of where, if anywhere, her fighting career is headed, but judging solely on what she chose to talk about in her first public interview since losing to Nunes, fighting isn’t at the top of her list.
Ronda Rousey appeared in her first public interview since her TKO loss to Amanda Nunes in the main event of last December’s UFC 207, but it wasn’t to talk about anything related to her up-in-the-air UFC future. Instead, Rousey discussed her new coaching role on ABC’s ‘Battle of the Network Stars’ on ‘Live With Kelly […]
Ronda Rousey appeared in her first public interview since her TKO loss to Amanda Nunes in the main event of last December’s UFC 207, but it wasn’t to talk about anything related to her up-in-the-air UFC future.
Instead, Rousey discussed her new coaching role on ABC’s ‘Battle of the Network Stars’ on ‘Live With Kelly and Ryan’ this morning (Wed., July 5, 2017), and talk then shifted to her engagement to UFC heavyweight Travis Browne before taking a turn for the strange.
Apparently, some thugs broke into Rousey’s home while she and Browne were on vacation in New Zealand, which is where ‘Hapa’ popped the question. And the vandals got away with quite the haul, even if it didn’t end well for them (quotes transcribed by MMA Weekly):
We stopped by the house right before we were going to go to the airport and he was going to sneak away and go ask my mom for permission but right when we got to the house, we realized we were robbed. Someone had been squatting in my house for like three days, sleeping in my bed.
“[They] stole my Olympic rings, stole my guns, stole all my precious jewelry, every headphone in the house, credit cards.”
Rousey explained that her security cameras caught the criminals with shocking ease, as the not-so-smart robbers were skaters who frequented a nearby skate park in their home base of Venice, Calif. With the cam footage aiding him, Rousey revealed how quickly Browne tracked them down, being ever-so-careful to not physically assault the criminals:
“We have security cameras so we looked back at them and we saw that they were a bunch of kids with skateboards and there’s a famous skate park right across the street cause we’re in Venice. So my man’s 6’7” like 260 [pounds], he like beelines it straight to the skateboard park, finds the guys right away.
“He’s smart enough not to [hit them], we’ll get sued pretty hard, but he found the police right then and they caught them.”
But even though the situation ended up as well as it could have for the embattled former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, it still understandably doesn’t sit well with the onetime queen of MMA. She thinks the robbers knew it was her house for sure, something that is probably the case after she was previously tagged with graffiti shortly after her latest defeat earlier this year:
“They knew it was my house,” Rousey said. “There’s no way you can’t not know it’s my house. What little punks.”
So Rousey was able to find some just desserts for the squatters who robbed her of her valued possessions, and is now set to resume her career in the limelight on major network television. Add that to her engagement to Browne and her life is obviously full even without any discussion of the sport she ruled with an iron fist.
The legions of fans who once thought she could defeat many of the male bantamweights fighting in the UFC would most likely like an explanation of where, if anywhere, her fighting career is headed, but judging solely on what she chose to talk about in her first public interview since losing to Nunes, fighting isn’t at the top of her list.
With the UFC’s rough start to 2017 now almost in the middle of June, the topic of just how bad the year is for the UFC is not only an oft-discussed talking point, but it has become a brooding specter of uncertainty at this point, one that could ultimately spell doom for the outfit that […]
With the UFC’s rough start to 2017 now almost in the middle of June, the topic of just how bad the year is for the UFC is not only an oft-discussed talking point, but it has become a brooding specter of uncertainty at this point, one that could ultimately spell doom for the outfit that has led MMA for so long.
The reasons why this unfortunate circumstance is becoming clear are many, and indeed they’ve been brewing for several years in more than one instance. The fact that the company is under new ownership after Hollywood talent giant WME-IMG purchased the UFC for a record-breaking $4.2 billion last July is obviously a huge motivating factor why the UFC is failing, but there are many others that only speed up that process.
Several MMA pundits have predicted grey skies for at least the immediate future of the UFC, and it’s hard to predict a quick turnaround for the promotion in the final seven months of the year, even if at least a few big fights are on the horizon. What’s more, there are even a few more ominous signs that suggest the new owners are possibly running the world’s biggest MMA company into the ground for good.
Let’s take a look at the biggest reasons why the UFC is spiraling downward rapidly.
5. Dana White’s Strong-Arm Tactics:
There’s no denying that White, alongside with his childhood friends and Las Vegas casino moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, saved MMA and the UFC from dying off when they purchased the company back in the late 20th century. They then parlayed that gamble into one of the most lucrative rags-to-riches (figuratively) stories in combat sports, turning MMA into a worldwide phenomenon while making the UFC one of sports’ most coveted properties by the time it reached its height in 2016.
A lot of that financial success was built on paying fighters the bare minimum, however, and that fact was effectively kept under wraps when the Fertittas were in charge, but absolutely exploded on to the forefront of most MMA discussion when WME-IMG bought it for a seemingly ludicrous $4.2 billion last year.
But White, who was kept on as president and the company’s public face, has recently seen this strong-arm strategy backfire in his face and in no small way. His messy feud with dominant flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson that recently spilled over into the media is the most glaring – and poignant – example.
Fighters aren’t going to take whatever scraps the UFC offers them now that they know how much they’re really worth, and while they’ve failed to effectively organize in any lasting form to this point, White’s bullying clearly isn’t going to scare today’s fighters into signing whatever is put in front of them and their managers.
