Ronda Rousey’s last fight was in December 2016, and ever since that fight she has been itching to change the ending of her story. Rewind a little over a year ago, and the former heavyweight champion had an idea to take on someone she looked up to, Gina Carano. What once felt like a small dream, Rousey and Carano have teamed up with MVP Productions to make the fight happen on May 16th on Netflix. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ronda Rousey to talk about the big fight.
Who doesn’t love a comeback story? Rousey has the chance at redemption and writing the end of her story in her own way. Back in February, the massive announcement was made that this big fight would be happening on Netflix. This is a once-in-a-generation fight, and the stakes for Rousey might never be higher. Alongside Rousey vs. Carano, the card includes the likes of Francis Ngannou, Nate Diaz, and Junior Dos Santos.
Ronda Rousey Talks About Upcoming MMA Match vs. Gina Carano
Ricky Valero: One of my favorite things since this announcement is watching you have fun with a sport that you love. What reinvigorated you to return, and where’s this passion coming from right now?
Ronda Rousey: I think it came from Gina. Gina’s the one that inspired me to come to MMA in the first place and sparked that joy in me in the beginning. When I was nine months pregnant sitting in an office chair, I saw Gina had hit a low after getting canceled and was super unhealthy and overweight. There were a bunch of things that happened before that that kind of planted the seed in my mind.
You know, Mike Tyson’s comeback being the biggest combat sport of all time was one of them. And I saw where she was at, and I was looking at my big belly and where I was at. I was like, man, a fight between us would be huge. It would be huge. It’d be bigger than my belly. I’m like, it’s precisely what we need. It’s precisely what would pull us out of this, not that being hugely pregnant is a rut, but it is like, you know, it’s a bodily identity crisis. And I just knew after seeing her that this is exactly what she and I needed.
This was the closure that we both needed in the sport. And this is like, everybody loves a redemption story. And I knew that I would be coming back just for me because I was the one making the phone call. You know what I mean? Nobody was calling me. Nobody, it got to the point where every single person I saw all day wasn’t asking me, When are you going to fight again? When are you going to fight again? Everyone had finally given up on it.
So then I knew it was coming just from me. So I reached out to her, and she was down, and that was well over a year ago. And we started out first in secret, like our self-betterment journey to get better for each other. And I think we needed the threat and the danger of each other to be able to push ourselves to the extent that we have.
GVN: The first conversation that you guys had, did she think you were a little crazy? Was she just automatically like, I want to do this? What was that conversation like?
Rousey: Well, I didn’t have her number. Therefore, I hit up Dana, and I was like, hey, what did you think of this? And then he called her, and he was like, Oh, she’s already lost 25 pounds. And she felt like this was a great idea and everything like that. She’s always wanted to walk out there again. And so it wasn’t until Hunter Campbell basically sabotaged our deal over at UFC. And then it also went from pay-per-view to streaming, and then they were no longer able to offer us numbers we deserve.
Then we were put in contact. Well, we were really originally put in contact because Hunter was saying that Gina was 100 pounds and that she wasn’t serious about the fight and that she wasn’t going to be able to go by New Year’s. I was like, well, let me speak to her directly, and that was not true at all.
She had already lost a huge amount of weight, and she was very serious about it. And she just didn’t think she’d be ready by New Year’s, and she needed until at least April, which now has been pushed to May 16th. And so that was when we finally got to speak directly, and I got to hear from her about the fire that had been ignited inside of her and how seriously she was taking this.
And when it wasn’t going to work out at UFC, I reached out to her, and she said, You know what? I’m going to trust you and follow your lead, whatever you want to do. But we were both free agents, and we could self-promote, and I knew that we could do this on our own and knock it out of the park. So we were looking at all these different options, but Netflix and MVP Productions were always like the Holy Grail for us. And because I saw what they were able to do with Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, and Netflix is the biggest streamer on earth. And this is a premier fight, and it deserves a premier stage to be on.
GVN: You know, maybe this is the last one, or perhaps it’s not, and obviously you’ll probably get in there and get that vibe. But I think one of the things that I am more intrigued by is what’s next in the aspect of you in this realm? Is this something that you could potentially see you fitting into a role of promotion and helping elevate other fighters? Because it’s always been just UFC. And I know there are other tangibles out in the world, but like getting a platform as big as Netflix, is this something that you can see yourself doing in the future?
Rousey: I mean, I think this is really my audition to see if they would like me to be in that role. I think that, honestly, I think nobody’s more capable than I am and that I would do an incredible job. I’ve basically been Dana’s apprentice this whole time, and I’ve followed him around and seen how he does it. And Nikita has been an incredible partner, and so has Jake. And I think if they want to have me on in that role, I would love to inhabit it. But we’ll see how this goes, and we’ll see if we can work something out.
You can watch Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano and the rest of the MVP Productions card on May 16 on Netflix.
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