Dana White: Rousey ‘Probably Done’ Fighting
Dana White isn’t sure if Ronda Rousey will ever fight again.
After suffering the second consecutive loss of her mixed martial arts career (MMA), Rousey’s fighting future has remained very much in a state of doubt, and that doubt seems to have crept its way to UFC President Dana White. White recently joined the UFC Unfiltered podcast (quotes via MMA Fighting) with Matt Sera and Jim Norton to discuss Rousey’s Octagon future, where White said he thinks ‘Rowdy’ is ‘probably done’ fighting:
“In the conversation I had with her, if I had to say right here right now — and again, I don’t like saying right here right now because it’s up to her — but I wouldn’t say she fights again,” he said. “I think she’s probably done. She’s going to ride off into the sunset and start living life outside of fighting.”
The former Olympic judoka started off her career with an un-tarnished 12-0 record which included seven successful women’s bantamweight title defenses. That all came to a screeching halt when Rousey ran into Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November of 2015, where ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ downed Rousey for the first time in her career with a vicious second round knockout.
After spending 13 months away from the Octagon in order to recover from the loss, both physically and emotionally, Rousey made her highly-anticipated return against now-champion Amanda Nunes in the main event of UFC 207. Unfortunately for Rousey, Nunes utilized her superior striking and ridiculous power to put her away in just 48 seconds of the first round.
On the subject if whether or not Rousey’s sense of ‘invincibility’ has now been swept under the rug, White had a different take on the matter:
“It’s not even that I think it’s an invincible thing, it’s just that she’s so competitive that her career and record meant everything to here,” he said. “And then once she lost, she started to say to herself, ‘what the f*ck am I doing? This is my whole life — this is it? I want to experience and start doing other things.’ And I think that’s what she started to do, and she’s got a lot of money. She’s never going to need money again.
“Because, unless you spend money like Floyd [Mayweather], you’re not going to need money again when you have the kind of money Ronda has.”
Despite recent road-bumps White won’t let those diminish the legendary career Rousey has had, as he praised her for leading the charge of women’s MMA when it was just in its infancy:
“I’m happy for her, man,” he said. “She came in, she changed the world. She put female fighting on the map. She’s been part of the biggest fights in the history of women’s fighting, and I hope those records can be broken. I don’t know if they can, but I hope they can.”
With White now joining the masses in speculation that ‘The Rowdy One’ will never step into the UFC’s Octagon again, perhaps it truly is the end of Rousey’s legendary MMA career.
