Ronda Rousey back for redemption as she fights Gina Carano in MMA bout

When Ronda Rousey retired from the UFC after a career that saw her defend her title six times, she felt like she had lost her love for the sport.

“I think that’s what I was missing towards the end of my career … I just didn’t want to be there anymore,” the former bantamweight UFC champion told ABC Sport Daily.

“I was just dragging myself into the arena for other reasons outside of myself.”

After almost a decade away from the ring, Rousey is set to return this weekend, at age 39, to fight Gina Carano in an MMA bout.

This time, Rousey feels like she will be doing it for herself.

“This is my chance to really change all of those prior associations and make this thing mine again,” she said.

Rousey ended her career with successive losses, the first of which was in Australia in 2015.

Before that, the UFC Hall of Famer was undefeated.

When she took on Holly Holm in 2015 it was in front of a record crowd of 56,214 spectators crammed into Docklands, all of whom were waiting to see a title fight between two of the sport’s best.

The bout was over just 59 seconds into the second round, when a roundhouse kick from Holm earned her a knockout victory and left Rousey questioning her future in the sport.

“I just honestly didn’t want to be there,” Rousey said.

“I was [feeling] the pressure to sell out Etihad Stadium (Docklands), the biggest stadium in the southern hemisphere and in a country that I wasn’t from.

“I was just so worn out.”

Rousey ready for ‘dream fight’

Rousey took a year away from fighting, but when re-entering the octagon she was dispatched in just 48 seconds at the hands of Amanda Nunes.

It was her second career defeat and she was done.

Carano, Rousey’s opponent in Los Angeles on Sunday AEST, last fought in 2009 but has remained in the headlines for a series of controversial social media posts.

She has copped criticism online for posts about a range of topics, including suggesting churches and businesses should open during the COVID-19 lockdowns and sharing memes about voter fraud in the wake of Joe Biden’s 2020 US presidential election win.

The online backlash was enough to have her removed from the cast of The Mandalorian, with Lucasfilm releasing a statement that said in part: “Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

It was this “cancellation” that drew Rousey to Carano as an opponent for the first MMA event put on by MVP, the promotion company co-owned by Jake Paul.

“I saw a video of Gina after she got cancelled. She was just really not healthy and not looking good,” Rousey said.

“I knew that there was something that me and Gina had that would be huge … us, like reclaiming our bodily identities, us both having a redemption story, and just the combination of us two being a dream fight and being able to rewrite our endings in the sport together.

“It just seemed like a no-brainer.”

‘All about the experience’

The prospect of getting back in the arena is clearly something that excites Rousey, despite feeling her experience with the UFC was soured by the end of her career.

“I think before it … everything was result-based and the experience be damned,” she said.

“This time it’s been all about the experience and making it the best experience possible, which has incidentally led me to the best results and the best output that I could possibly have.

“I finally realised that I’d been going about it backwards all along, but better late than never, I guess”.

As for whether we see the mother of two fighting regularly again?

“We had such beautiful babies, and I just need to have more if I can, and I just can’t be making any more detours,” said Rousey, who is married to MMA fighter Travis Browne.

“I have to get to business. So that’s what we want to do and try to do as a family.

“And, fingers crossed, hopefully it works out for us.”