UFC Champ Ronda Rousey: "Every single body type is beautiful."
By Steven Shapiro
Ronda Rousey has been fighting her entire life. The UFC champion barely survived her own birth. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Today, Rousey is considered one of the most dominant athletes alive and was just ranked the top pound-for-pound MMA fighter by Sports Illustrated. To put it simply, she destroys her opponents. Her last fight lasted all of 14 seconds. Most of her matches take less than a minute.
Her new book, “My Fight/Your Fight,” is a revealing look at her journey to the top of the mixed martial arts world. In a candid interview with Yahoo News and Finance anchor Bianna Golodryga, the former Olympian offers her thoughts on a range of topics, including doping in sports, deflate-gate, and why she would never fight a man, despite conventional wisdom that she could beat many of her male counterparts.
“I just don’t think there should ever be a situation where there is an arena full of people gathered around cheering about a man hitting a woman,” Rousey tells Golodryga. “I really don’t see how that would be right. I really don’t see how that would help the sport at all. It would do nothing but hurt it.”
Rousey is also strongly against the use of steroids or performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
“It’s like an arms race between the athletes lacking morality and the science to catch them,” she says.
When the revelations about bicyclist Lance Armstrong came to light, they crushed her, she says. “When I found out it was all lies, I felt guilty. I felt guilty I was inspired by a con.”
She even has an opinion on the scandal that implicated Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in tampering with footballs.
“I don’t believe you should ever have advantage you didn’t earn. Having balls that are easier to grab than the other team just isn’t fair.”
Rousey may still have a lot of fight left, but she’s also preparing for the future once her MMA days are behind her. She has already appeared in big-budget films, including “Furious 7” and “The Expendables 3.” This summer she will appear in the “Entourage” film.
Her next fight is scheduled to take place in Brazil on Aug. 1 against Bethe Correia.
