Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey
Ronda Jean Rouseyis an American mixed martial artist, judoka, and actor. Rousey was the first U.S. woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo, which she won at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She is the former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, as well as the last Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion. She won twelve consecutive MMA fights, six in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, before suffering her first and only loss to Holly Holm; she won eleven of those fights in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMMA Fighter
Date of Birth1 February 1987
CityRiverside, CA
CountryUnited States of America
See, for some reason, I feel like it's a victory if I wake up one minute before the alarm. It's like I'm in a contest with myself, with my foot kicking around until it wakes up the rest of my body. It's the stupidest thing. But it makes me feel like I've already won something.
I wasn't allowed to throw big hooks and overhand rights until I'd been striking for three years. It's so you don't rely on those things from the very beginning. If your footwork sucks, and you can only stand in one place and throw your hands all crazy while the other person is running around, you're never going to be able to hit them.
When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.
I'm unbelievably ticklish. When I was a little kid, my sisters would hold me down and tickle me until I peed my pants.
I had a lot of trouble speaking as a kid. I didn't really speak in coherent sentences until I was, like, 6 years old. There was a long time where everybody was very worried, because my sisters were so advanced for their age, and I would barely talk.
I don't lift weights at all. Every muscle on my body is for an actual task; there is no muscle that I train for show. If I want to be able to do a certain move or action, I train really hard until I can. And with all of that training comes muscle definition, so it's really an afterthought.
I've separated my shoulder and my collarbone; I've messed up my knee a million times. I've broken my foot in several places. I've broken my toe a bunch, broken my nose a couple of times, and had a bunch of other annoying little injuries, like turf toe and arthritis and tendonitis. It's part of the game.
I spent the whole first year of my career just on my legs. If you have good legs under you, then you can punch. Anybody can stand and throw their hands and look like an idiot. If you actually want to learn how to punch, you have to work on being balanced on your legs and feeling your legs under you. Feel the ground.
There's something so zen-like and grateful of just ripping a hot wing apart and getting it all over your face, and everyone's happy. I love that atmosphere.
People can say I am a terrible role model because I swear all the time or that I fight people. Look, I don't want little girls to have the same ambitions as me. I want them to know that it is O.K. to be ambitious. I want them to know that it is O.K. to say whatever it is that is on their mind.
People call me a whole lot of things, but above anything else, I'm a fighter, and it's going to be hard to accept an identity without that.
Believe me, there's nothing I would like to do more than disappear for a while.
Every chick I try to intimidate in a different way. You have to think about their personality. You have to think about what would get under that particular person's skin the most.
At the end of the day, I can't curl up with people's opinions.