Rousey felt she had to save women’s MMA from ‘that cheating ass b*tch’ Cyborg; Cyborg responds

Ronda Rousey was only two fights into her MMA career when she signed with Strikeforce. Soon after, she became one of the faces of the sport and helped usher women into UFC.

It’s been documented many times over that UFC CEO Dana White famously said women would never fight in the octagon, but Rousey became the game-changer that altered his vision for the promotion. But all the way back in 2011, Rousey was just an up-an-coming fighter hoping she could make enough of an impact for someone like White to notice her.

Looking back now, Rousey admits she felt a responsibility to get White’s attention, especially with the knowledge that women were potentially on the cutting block after UFC purchased Strikeforce.

“People forget how fragile that situation was and how last-minute I was able to get us in,” Rousey told Chris Van Vliet. “Strikeforce was the only organization that was really showcasing women and that was because of Gina Carano, because her dad was involved with the Nevada Athletic Commission and was able to sanction fights for her and all these things.

“When she was gone, Cris Cyborg’s pumped to the f*cking gills with steroids. No one wants to watch that cheating ass bitch. Everything just tanked. The division was dying. The UFC bought Strikeforce and it was assumed they were just going to absorb all of the male talent that they liked and fold the whole organization, because that’s what they did with PRIDE, that’s what they did with WEC, that was their business model. So there was a matter of time.”

Prior to Rousey’s arrival, Carano was undoubtedly the biggest star in women’s MMA, but she effectively left the sport in 2009 after she suffered a first-round TKO loss to Cris Cyborg. Her departure from MMA didn’t stop Strikeforce from promoting women’s fights, but Rousey knew UFC buying the organization was going to potentially change everything.

From that moment forward, Rousey made it her mission to get attention by any means necessary, and her devastating finishes combined with her penchant for the dramatic whenever she touched a microphone helped her become a superstar.

“I was the first woman signed to Strikeforce since it got bought by Zuffa, and I was brought in to replace Gina Carano because she was supposed to come in for a comeback but she wasn’t medically cleared to come back for her match,” Rousey said. “So she pulled out and they signed me to fight that same chick, Sarah D’Alelio. So I knew the clock was ticking.

“It was just a matter of time before they closed the whole thing and there would be nowhere that would showcase women’s MMA, so I had that much time to make sure that Dana [White] couldn’t go a single day without seeing my name somewhere. The rest is history.”

Even after White decided to promote women’s fights in UFC, Rousey still didn’t feel like she was standing on solid ground.

At the beginning, women only had one UFC division and it was headed up by Rousey along with her considerable ability to draw a crowd. Even after UFC committed to a deeper roster for women and multiple divisions, Rousey still wasn’t sure what would happen if she just decided one day to walk away.

“Once women were brought to the UFC, [Dana] said, ‘This is an experiment, this is to see how it goes,’” Rousey said. “It got to a point where we had to see how it would go without me because it was so dependent on me.

“Whereas, I think if I retired undefeated and left, I don’t know what it would be like. Because they’ve already brought in the [145-pound] division and closed it. They’re not against closing divisions.”

These days, UFC promotes three different women’s divisions, and while no female fighter has reached stratospheric levels of fame like Rousey, there’s plenty of women’s talent at the top of the sport.

Rousey issued a reminder to the current crop of UFC fighters — male and female — that they all share a responsibility that goes beyond just training hard and showing up to compete.

Part of the reason she was able to convince White to bring her and the women’s division into UFC was because she commanded so much attention. Rousey believes more fighters need to take notice that their job goes so far beyond just fighting.

“I think one thing people don’t understand now as fighters — and the ones that do understand it do extremely well — it’s like, you have to promote your fight as hard as you train for it,” Rousey said. “A lot of people feel so secure in their position that they can just show up and fight and they should get everything thrown at them. It’s not the company that promotes you. You shouldn’t be expecting the company to spend all this money to promote you. What are they going to do? Make more commercials? You have to go out there and promote yourself. You have to go out there and be a character and make your fights into a story, and the things that I learned from pro wrestling.

“Before I even got into there, I was trying to bring that into women’s MMA, and I think a lot of them forget they’re not supposed to just be athletes but entertainers. It’s not something you do on the side. It’s something you do equally as hard and put just as much effort and time and focus into. A lot of people just think of it as a bother or something they have to do because the company makes them do it. That’s why you see some people that are absolutely incredible and no one outside of MMA has ever heard of them.”

UPDATE: Cyborg has responded.