- Ronda Rousey reveals she contemplated taking her own life after losing to Holly Holm
- The former UFC champion says the presence of her boyfriend Travis Browne helped her emerge from the moment of despair
- Holm says she empathize with Rousey but will not say sorry to her
- Rousey says her role now is to be an example of a person picking herself up
Ronda Rousey appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and probably had her most revealing interview yet. She bared that she contemplated taking her own life after her loss to Holly Holm in November 2015, but the sight of her boyfriend at the hospital made the suicidal thought go away.
According to an article posted on MMA Junkie, Rousey, through tears, told Ellen DeGeneres that she thought she was nothing without being an unbeaten MMA champion.
“Honestly, my thought, I was in the medical room and I was down in the corner, and I was like, ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?’” Rousey said. “I was literally sitting there and thinking about killing myself, and that exact second I’m like, ‘I’m nothing. What do I do anymore?’ and ‘No one gives a (expletive) about me anymore without this.’”
However, she as well revealed that suicidal thought went away the moment he saw her boyfriend, UFC heavyweight Travis Browne. Browne and Rousey had just recently made their relationship public and the former was in Australia to support the former UFC champion.
“To be honest, I looked up and I saw my man, Travis, was standing there,” Rousey recalled. “And I looked up at him and I was like, ‘I need to have his babies. I need to stay alive.’ Really, that was it. I haven’t told anybody that. I’ve only told him.”
In an article written by Jesse Holland and published by MMA Mania, Holm said that she empathize with Rousey but will not say sorry to her.
“I hurt for her that she feels that way because that is a very low place. I don’t want to say I’m sorry because I think on a competitive level for me, if somebody was to say they’re sorry after [beating me], it’s like, ‘No, I’m a competitor.’ I’m not a charity case. It’s something I think that you have to dig through on your own. In the long run, she’ll be stronger mentally from it,” Holm said.
Long-time rival Miesha Tate, on the other hand, said Rousey “mentally beat herself” heading into UFC 193. She said Rousey put too much pressure on herself to ‘finish’ Holm during the fight.
“I think Ronda went into that fight with Holly thinking, ‘If I don’t finish this girl in under two minutes, I’m already a failure,’ and she went in there with such desperation to get a quick finish,” Tate said.
“She had 25 minutes to get that fight to the ground and submit Holly. I think Ronda is capable of that, but I think she mentally beat herself up after not being able to do that in the first round,” she added.
After the emotional revelation, Rousey said she realized that her role now is to be an example of how a person can pick herself up. She said that while winning or losing a fight is a fact, being undefeated is a state of mind.
“I really do believe that I’m still undefeated because being defeated is a choice. Everybody has loses in their lives but I choose to always be undefeated,” Rousey said.
Watch the YouTube clip of the emotional interview below:
Post a Comment