How will Ronda Rousey bounce back from that devastating loss at UFC 193?
The former UFC women’s bantamweight queen is booked to fight current champion Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 on December 30.
This will mark the first time Rousey has fought since that seismic head kick from Holly Holm that was heard around the world landed flush. That loss in Melbourne saw Rousey lose her belt and her unbeaten record and she has been shying away from the media ever since.
Rousey was brought back into the spotlight at the official ‘just for show’ UFC 205 weigh-ins to face off against Nunes. She was greeted with rapturous applause from the New York crowd and engaged in the obligatory staredown for the cameras. However, her cameo ended abruptly as she exited stage left as soon as Joe Rogan began interviewing her opponent.
Considering how little we’ve seen of Rousey in the past few months, some fans suspected that she may have stormed off so that she wouldn’t have to speak into the microphone. Dana White was quick to kill those suspicions at the post-UFC 205 press conference, assuring everyone that the interview segment was never supposed to happen.
“First of all, she was never supposed to speak and neither was Amanda. My production guys screwed that up. It made Ronda look back like she stormed off. She’s not supposed to do an interview. She was supposed to go up there and square off and they were both supposed to walk away.”
“They squared off and then I was getting them to face forward and I was waiting for someone to bring Amanda’s belt. You know how we do that? To put the belt so you guys can take the pictures of them moving forward and I turn around and Rogan’s interviewing her. I was trying to get them to stand forward and then somebody bring Amanda the belt.”
Respected MMA analyst Robin Black expressed some doubts with White’s comments on the Fight Network. While he admitted it could be true that it was indeed a mistake from the production side of things, he hinted that White may have been protecting his star after hearing reports that she had become upset backstage.
“When she did that face-to-face the other day, Dana White, who is a very smart man and is probably very protective of her said, ‘Well, they weren’t going to face off anyways.’ That may be true, but we got lots of reports from the back that she was very upset in the back and needing to be consoled and stuff like that.”
“You could have somebody here who the pressure of the public scrutiny and losing and all those things has damaged her. That’s a possibility.”
Black isn’t the only one mentioning these reports of Rousey needing to be consoled back stage. When asked by a fan on Twitter if there was any truth to them, MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer responded with one-word, “True”.
— Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) November 23, 2016
