Ronda Rousey took plenty of hard hits near the end of her time inside the octagon and until recently she had no idea the full effect the damage done was having on her.
It’s been over eight years since Rousey last competed, with her legendary UFC run ending with back-to-back knockout losses to Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm. Rousey, now 38, has frequently been criticized for how she handled her departure from MMA. Following a stunning loss to Holm, Rousey disappeared from the public eye for a year only to return and suffer another devastating loss at the hands of Nunes. It was the last time Rousey would fight in the UFC.
In recent interviews and in her memoir, Rousey blamed much of her health issues on a history of concussions dating back to her days competing in judo long before she decided to compete in MMA. With the assistance of UFC CEO and close friend Dana White, Rousey has learned a lot about her lifelong neurological issues, which stem from more than just concussion-inducing blows inside the cage.
“I don’t have any regrets or anything like that,” Rousey told UNTAPPED. “Fortunately, I have a lot more information now about what was going on with me. I just felt like I couldn’t be honest about what I was physically going through without people feeling like I was making excuses for myself. I also feel like I didn’t owe anyone any explanation especially if they were going to shit all over it. So yeah, I needed to figure out what was going on first.
“Dana sent me to this long-term fighters’ neurological study and they actually made some—I wouldn’t call them breakthroughs, but actually were able to diagnose a lot of the stuff that was going on with me and I guess still is. I just didn’t have all the information at that time. So, I couldn’t hand that information to me then to explain things better now, so no, I don’t dwell on that at all. It was the best I could do with what I had.”
According to Rousey, a history of epilepsy in her family exacerbated any newly occurring neurological damage from her dive into full-contact combat sports. It was a problem she thought had gone away when she was younger, but speaking to a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic provided some real answers to what might have been wrong with her.
“He was saying that people that get migraines are actually more susceptible to concussions and the more concussions that you get, the easier it is for these impacts to set off a migraine,” Rousey said. “And he was saying that not all migraines involve a searing headache, the headache part isn’t part of all of it and so what we think was going on was we kind of ended up in this feedback loop of the more concussions I was getting the easier it was to set off these migraines and so in these fights—go figure, two of my triggers is bright lights and head impacts—so I’d get hit and I’d basically lose big chunks of my vision and my depth perception and my ability to track movements quickly and make snap decisions, which is basically all the things that I need and I thought I have a concussion, I’m out on my feet, but I wouldn’t be stumbling around. I didn’t lose my balance. This was like, I had to retire because this kept happening to me more and more often to the point where I would get a jab and I would basically go blind.
“[The doctor] said what he thinks is happening is these impacts, now because of all the concussions, are setting off these migraine events, which is like my neurons get overly excited and then they shut down. So it could be a game changer because there could actually be some solutions to it. Before I was like, ‘Oh, it’s just inevitably declined and I inevitably declined until I was shitting my pants. Great. This is my life now.’ I was like, I need to stop this or else I’m just speeding this up.”
Prior to her final two fights, Rousey emerged as one of the biggest stars in MMA history, winning her first 12 pro bouts and defending the UFC bantamweight title six consecutive times. Rousey also authored several memorable moments during that stretch, including a run of title defenses in which she finished several of her opponents in under a minute. Following her final fight in 2016, Rousey went on to a successful professional wrestling run with the WWE.
Rousey is now in the course of consulting migraine specialists and neurologists to better understand her condition, and while it is unlikely she ever fights again, she’s optimistic that she can improve her quality of life going forward.
“Now that I’m kind of getting some help in diagnosis and stuff like that, I’m much more hopeful than I’ve ever been and instead of just being like, ‘OK, this is just part of it, I’ve just got to walk away before it gets worse,’ possibly there’s something I can do to make it better,” Rousey said. “I just didn’t have this information back then. I didn’t know what to say other than there’s something going on with me and I can’t fight anymore because of it.”
