On December 30, 2016, the final event of that year’s UFC itinerary, UFC 207, took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Enterprise, NV. That Friday evening, Rousey returned to competition after a 13-month absence against Amanda Nunes.
Although the match was five rounds of five minutes each, Nunes only needed less than a full minute to complete her assignment, stopping Ronda Rousey with punches in the opening round. No one knew it at the time, but it would be the last match Ronda Rousey would hold in the cage until May of this year.
Ronda Rousey turns to WWE after leaving MMA behind
In early 2018, Rousey took on a new challenge in her professional life: sports entertainment. At WrestleMania XXXIV in April 2018, she appeared in her first match with WWE under the title Monday night RAW banner. While UFC CEO Dana White was in attendance that night, she teamed with tag team partner Kurt Angle to defeat Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in a mixed match at the pay-per-view.
From there, Rousey was on the RAW brand for a year and won the RAW Women’s Championship. A pinfall loss for the then current SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch in a winner-take-all, triple threat match against Charlotte Flair saw Ronda Rousey drop the win RAW title, which earned Lynch the nickname “Becky Two-Belts.”
After a hiatus from performing in WWE in early 2022, Rousey returned, this time up Friday Night SmackDown, eventually winning the Blue Brand’s Women’s Championship twice and the WWE Women’s Tag-Team Championship with . Once Rousey did independent shows for a while, Rousey said her time in sports entertainment was over for good.
Ronda Rousey back in MMA, this time under the MVP banner
Earlier Tuesday it was announced that Ronda Rousey would make a comeback against Gina Carano (7-1 MMA) on May 16, but this will not be part of the UFC promotional signature. Instead, Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions will put on its first-ever MMA card and Rousey’s fight with Carano will be the women’s featherweight main event with a maximum of five rounds of five minutes per round.
As was the case with the December 19 boxing card in Miami, Netflix will carry the event live. In a Tuesday interview with ESPN, Ronda Rousey opened up about why her next fight won’t be a UFC tilt.
“I contacted Dana and asked him if he would be interested in it,” Ronda Rousey said. “It didn’t really work with the UFC, but it got us here today.”
Why did Ronda Rousey come back now?
Rousey said a fight with Carano was the one match that eluded her, and it’s why she was driven to make her upcoming return.
“There’s nothing I can really do for her,” she said, “except when I was in a similar situation, when I was depressed and giving up on the world and accidentally giving up on myself. What I needed was a purpose and something to reignite my passion. I always said Gina is the one person I would come back and fight for, and I thought, ‘You know what? She needs this. She needs this fight.'”
Rousey came to the conclusion that she herself should participate in the competition again.
“The more I thought about this, I thought, ‘I need this!’” she said. “‘I need this fight.'”
Final thoughts
While MVP has hosted a series of boxing events, the May 16 show will mark the organization’s first foray into the world of MMA. What a way for MVP to dip his toes into the MMA pool by booking Ronda Rousey, a legend in women’s MMA, for the first such main event under the MVP banner.
At the same time, though, fans have to wonder whether or not she is ready to come back after almost a decade away from the sport. Rousey just turned 39 earlier this month.
If she’s the same version of Ronda Rousey who defended UFC gold six times, fans could expect a quick night and a win, but if not, Carano, who hasn’t fought since 2009, could have a successful night.
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