Ronda Jean Rouse was born on February 1, 1987. she is an American mixed martial artist, judoka, and actress. She is the former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, as well as the last Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion. She has won eleven of her fights in the first round, nine of them by armbar. Rousey was the first U.S. woman to earn anOlympic medal in judo (Bronze) at the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Rousey trains under Gokor Chivichyan of the Hayastan MMA Academy, and Edmond Tarverdyan of the Glendale Fighting Club. In 2015, she was the third most searched person on Google.
As of December 2015, Rousey is ranked the #1 female bantamweight fighter in the world according to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and #2 by Sherdog and Fight Matrix. Sherdog lists her as the #3 Pound for Pound Women's MMA fighter in the world, while ESPN and Fight Matrix list her #4 female Pound for Pound fighter.
In May 2015, two magazines ranked Rousey as the most dominant active athlete.Rousey was voted on an ESPN poll as the Best Female Athlete Ever. In September 2015, she revealed that she is currently the UFC's highest paid fighter, male or female. Rousey's first feature film role was the 2014 film The Expendables 3. In 2015, she had roles in the films Furious 7 and Entourage.
Rousey was born in Riverside, California, the youngest of three daughters of AnnMaria De Mars (née Waddell) and Ron Rousey, after whom Rousey was named. Her mother had a decorated Judo career and was the first U.S. citizen to win a World Judo Championship (in 1984). Her maternal grandfather was Venezuelan, and was of part Afro-Venezuelan ancestry. Her other ancestry includes English and Polish. Her stepfather, is an aerospace engineer. Her biological father, having broken his back sledding with his daughters and having learned that he would be a paraplegic, committed suicide in 1995, when Rousey was eight years old. AnnMaria pursued her Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of California, Riverside as her daughters grew up.
For the first six years of her life, Rousey struggled with speech and could not form an intelligible sentence due to apraxia, a neurological childhood speech sound disorder. This speech disorder was attributed to being born with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck at birth. When Rousey was three years old, her mother and father moved from Riverside, California, to Jamestown, North Dakota, to obtain intensive speech therapy with specialists at Minot State University.
Rousey dropped out of high school and later earned a G.E.D. She was raised in Southern California and Jamestown, North Dakota, retiring from her judo career at 21 and starting her MMA career at 22 when she realized that she did not want to spend her life in a conventional field of work.
Rousey retired from judo at 21 after the Olympics. After winning her Olympic medal, Rousey shared a studio apartment with a roommate in Venice Beach, California and worked three jobs as a bartender and cocktail waitress to support herself and her dog.
When Ronda started learning judo, her mom took her to judo clubs run by her old teammates. Ronda went to Hayastan MMA Academy ran by Gokor Chivichyan, where she trained with fellow future MMA fighters Manny Gamburyan and Karo Parisyan. According to Rousey, Hayastan practiced "a more brawling style of judo versus the more technical Japanese style." Rousey trained mostly with males bigger than her and often got frustrated and cried when she got thrown and couldn't throw somebody. "Probably from 2002 to 2005 I cried every single night of training," Rousey remarked.
Rousey trained closely with Gamburyan. After tearing up her knee when she was 16, Gamburyan volunteered to open the gym every afternoon and work with her personally. Back in 2004, her teammates thought Rousey "would kill these girls" in MMA, but also thought she was "too pretty to get hit in the face" and should keep doing judo. While Gamburyan and Parisyan went into MMA, Rousey stuck with judo but remained in touch with MMA through them. The first MMA fight she took an interest in watching was Manny Gamburyan versus Nate Diaz in The Ultimate Fighter finale. Rousey stated she never got as excited watching judo or any other sport. After the 2008 Olympics the following year, she decided to start MMA through Team Hayastan.
Rousey also trains at the Glendale Fighting Club, which she was introduced to through Gamburyan and other Hayastan teammates. She started training under her current coach Edmond Tarverdyan at GFC. Tarverdyan is a former WBC Muaythai National Champion.
In November 2012, the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced that Rousey had become the first female fighter to sign with the UFC. UFC President Dana White officially announced at the UFC on Fox: Henderson vs. Diaz pre-fight press conference that Rousey was the first UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion.
Rousey originally opposed using the nickname her friends gave her, "Rowdy", feeling it would be disrespectful to professional wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. After meeting Piper (circa 2012 or 2013) through Gene LeBell, who helped train both of them, Piper personally gave his approval.
Rousey defended her title against Liz Carmouche on February 23, 2013 at UFC 157. Despite being caught in an early standing neck crank attempt from Carmouche, Rousey got out of it and successfully defended her Bantamweight Championship title, winning the fight at 4:49 into the first round by submission due to an armbar. Liz Carmouche dislocated Ronda Rousey's jaw during the fight.
After Cat Zingano defeated Miesha Tate at The Ultimate Fighter: Team Jones vs. Team Sonnen Finale, Dana White announced that Zingano would be a coach of The Ultimate Fighter 18 against Rousey. On May 28, it was announced that Zingano would not be a coach and opponent for Rousey after Zingano suffered a knee injury earlier that same month which would require surgery; therefore, Miesha Tate instead would coach on The Ultimate Fighter 18 against Rousey.
Rousey faced Miesha Tate, in a rematch from Strikeforce, at UFC 168 on December 28, 2013. After going past the first two rounds, with Tate surviving an armbar attempt and a triangle attempt, Rousey finally submitted Tate via armbar in the third round to retain her Bantamweight Championship. In an interview with Los Angeles Daily News, Rousey said she had lost muscle during her film commitments and not been able to regain her full strength for the Tate fight.
It was announced at the UFC 168 post-fight press conference that Rousey would defend the UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship against fellow Olympic medalist and undefeated fighter, Sara McMann in the main event at UFC 170 on February 22, 2014. Rousey won the fight by TKO after knocking down McMann with a knee to the body. This marked Rousey's first career win via a method other than armbar. The stoppage led to controversy, with some sports writers and attendants finding it premature.
In 2014, Rousey was named one of espnW's Impact 25.
On April 11, 2014 it was announced that Rousey would defend the UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship against Alexis Davis in the co-main event at UFC 175 on July 5, 2014. She won the fight via knockout just 16 seconds into the first round. Rousey broke her thumb during the fight. The emphatic win also earned Rousey her secondPerformance of the Night bonus award.
A match between Rousey and Cat Zingano was scheduled to take place at UFC 182 for the women's bantamweight title. However, the fight was moved to February 28, 2015 at UFC 184. Rousey defeated Zingano with an armbar in 14 seconds, the shortest match in UFC championship history.
Rousey fought Bethe Correia on August 1, 2015 in Brazil, at UFC 190, winning the bout by knockout 34 seconds into the first round. Rousey dedicated the match to "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, who died the day before, commenting that Piper was one of her inspirations and had endorsed her use of his nickname.
The completion of this bout marked Rousey's sixth official with the UFC, all of which had been victories. She spent 1077 seconds in the octagon to attain all six and accumulated $1,080,000 in prize money; this equated to nearly $1002.79 for every second spent fighting. Her average time of 2 minutes and 59 seconds was less than the average time of a single match in every UFC weight class, the fastest of which was the Heavyweight division with a time of 7 minutes and 59 seconds.
In her sixth title defense, Rousey faced Holly Holm in the main event at UFC 193 on November 15, 2015. Despite being a heavy betting favorite, Rousey was unable to get Holm to the ground and had no answer for Holm's superior striking. It was only the second time that Rousey had been taken beyond the first round in her MMA career. Early in the second round, Holm knocked Rousey out with a kick to the head, ending Rousey's three-year reign as champion; it was the first loss of Rousey's MMA career. After the fight, Rousey and Holm were each awarded a Fight of the Night bonus of $50,000. She was also medically suspended by UFC on November 18, 2015, which included a no-contact suspension for 45-days, and no fights for 60-days, and will depend on CT scan results to have her suspension reduced. She was medically cleared on December 9, 2015, but the suspensions still hold.
Views on MMA
Professional wrestling
WWE The Four Horsewomen were acknowledged on camera and commentary as such, in the front row at WWE's SummerSlam in August 2014. They also went backstage for that event, meeting Paul Heyman, among others. Rousey was interviewed by WWE.com that night; when asked if she, like Brock Lesnar, would cross over to wrestling, she replied "You never know."
Rousey has challenged the notion of MMA being anti-woman. She argued, "There are so many ridiculous arguments that MMA is somehow anti-woman. Fighting is not a man's thing, it is a human thing. To say that it is anti-woman is an anti-feminist statement." Some journalists have characterized Rousey as a feminist, while others have described her as "antifeminist".
Rousey is a professional wrestling fan. Her nickname was taken from professional wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper, whom she asked for permission. She, Shayna Baszler,Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir have dubbed themselves "The Four Horsewomen," a play on The Four Horsemen professional wrestling stable, with the blessing of leader Ric Flair and enforcer Arn Anderson.
At WrestleMania 31 in March 2015, they were seated in the front row. During an in-ring argument between The Rock and the Authority (Stephanie McMahon and Triple H), McMahon slapped the Rock and ordered him to leave "her ring". She taunted him, saying he would not hit a woman. He left, paused and walked over to Rousey to a loud ovation. He then helped her into the ring, and said that she would be happy to hit McMahon for him. After a few minutes of a staredown and more dialogue, the Rock attacked Triple H. When he stumbled toward Rousey, she hiptossed him out of the ring. McMahon tried to slap her, was blocked and Rousey grabbed her arm, teasing an armbar, before throwing her out of the ring. Rousey and the Rock celebrated in the ring, while the Authority retreated with the implication of revenge.
The segment was replayed and discussed throughout the next night's Raw. Commentators hyped a tweet Rousey made earlier that day, in which she implied a return to WWE with "We're just gettin' started...".