Amanda Nunes may be gone, but that doesn’t mean the door is suddenly open for Ronda Rousey to return.
After Nunes announced her retirement from MMA following a lopsided win at UFC 289, some within the sport suggested that perhaps Rousey could come storming back with hopes of regaining the bantamweight title she previously defended six times. Rousey retired from fighting following a loss to Nunes, and these days she’s focused on her career in professional wrestling, where she remains a top draw for WWE.
Holly Holm, who ended Rousey’s reign as champion with arguably the most famous head kick in UFC history, is quick to shut down any talk about a potential comeback.
Instead, Holm suggests that everyone should really just let Rousey continue to find happiness in her new job after putting fighting behind her.
“She’s doing her thing. Let her live,” Holm told MMA Fighting. “Obviously she’s not passionate about fighting anymore. Let her do her thing. She’s still active. She’s still living her life. She’s still doing her thing. Let her do it.”
The sudden interest in Rousey fighting again isn’t totally surprising given her status as a superstar before falling to Holm and Nunes in back-to-back fights prior to her rise in pro wrestling.
That said, Rousey has given zero indications that she would actually want to compete again, especially now that she’s a mother with a favorable schedule at WWE that still allows her to have a lot of time at home with her family.
“I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s just fans want it so bad that they’re just wishing it to come true,” Holm said. “She’s doing her own thing. Honestly, I truly think she’s happier doing what she’s doing now than she was in fighting. I just sense that. I don’t know so I’m not going to say 100 percent on that, but I sense that she’s enjoying her time and her life and being a mom and doing her wrestling. I honestly don’t think [she’s coming back].
“She knows she can do whatever she wants. She’s made a name for herself and she can go out there and she’s going to do what she wants, and this is what she wants to do.”
During her somewhat brief three-year career with the UFC, Rousey became one of the biggest draws in the sport, rivaled only by Conor McGregor. She was later inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, but remains physically active with her current career in WWE.
While the UFC will soon become business partners with WWE through a new company founded under the Endeavor umbrella, that doesn’t mean Rousey will suddenly go on loan to return to MMA.
Holm also knows from personal experience that not everybody loves fighting enough to want to stick around the sport as long as she’s gone through her own combat sports career. There are a myriad of challenges to overcome, and Holm completely understands why someone would walk away.
“You have to physically want to be there,” Holm explained. “You have to mentally want to be there. You have to emotionally want to be there. There’s a lot. One fight camp, you go through everything. I think it was Teddy Atlas who said it and I think he said it after there was a big robbery in boxing, and I wish I had the right words exactly on how he said it, he was like, ‘Shame on these judges, every time you get in there you leave a piece of you in that fight and you come out a little less. You left a piece of yourself in there. You go through so much and your body takes so much. Your emotions take so much. A piece of you is gone.’
“So yeah, over all this time, to be an older fighter and go through that, it takes a lot. It takes a lot out of me. Every training camp, I’m exhausted after, but I love it and I know that I’m built to be a fighter and I’ve been doing it a long time.”
At 41, Holm is still going strong, with hopes that another title fight will be awaiting her in the near future, so she’s not going anywhere. Maybe the same can’t be said for Rousey when it comes to MMA, and Holm knows that’s completely OK as well.
“There’s so many different levels of it,” Holm said. “There’s losses and things that can take you down emotionally and beat you up. There’s been a time, I had a big loss and somebody came up and said, ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ and I was like, actually, that’s exactly what it feels like. You pour your heart and soul in there. It is everything, emotional, physical, spiritual, and you pour everything into it.
“So sometimes I think if a fighter retires, it may be because of the body, the physicality. Maybe it’s because of the emotions. There’s a lot. It takes a lot just to get to one fight.”
