Ronda Rousey says her concussion history forced her to retire

Ronda Rousey, one of the most influential stars in UFC history, revealed this week that she has retired from mixed martial arts, largely due to a history of concussions.

Rousey retired from MMA in 2016 at the age of 29 after consecutive knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes. Rousey, 37, said in an Instagram Live to promote her upcoming memoir, “Our Fight,'' that a long history of concussions in her former sport, judo, led to her decision to quit MMA. .

“I want people to understand my reasons and motivations behind things,” Rousey said. “I was forced to step away from martial arts at a time when I was faster, stronger, more skilled and understood the art better than ever before. It was a really difficult decision to understand. It was a decision I made for me.”

The UFC signed Rousey in 2012, making her the first female fighter in history. The former Olympic judo bronze medalist quickly rose to fame in the mixed martial arts world with her series of first round wins via armbar. She made her UFC debut in 2013, and she defended the UFC bantamweight title six times before losing by knockout to Holm in 2015 with a head kick.

After that loss, Rousey virtually went into hiding from the media and the MMA community. On her Instagram Live, she said one of the reasons she didn't talk in depth about that loss was because it was impossible to really talk about it without mentioning her history with concussions, which she had to do in order to compete. He said he felt he needed to keep it a secret.

“I think there was a lot of work to be done. [that loss] I can't talk about it in an interview or an article or whatever, otherwise there would be some filter between my words and the person reading them,” Rousey said. When I was doing judo before I got into MMA. When I was doing MMA, I couldn't talk about it at all. Because it would literally put a target on my head and I might not be allowed to compete anymore. ”

After retiring from MMA, Rousey (12-2) continued to wrestle for several companies, including WWE. She was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2018. UFC president Dana White credits her with being the only reason she changed her mind to promoting women's martial arts in 2012.