Ronda Rousey: The price I paid to become a UFC champion (E261)

0:00Watch it early on the High Performance App. Available now, Roman Kemp, the broadcaster, opens up a powerful conversation on success and mental health. I never wanted to put a perfect body in the ground. I wanted to use everything that I had while I had it, and I didn't feel like I was saving myself for a long life. I just wanted to, like, your body is the greatest tool you'll ever own, and I wanted to use it until I was down to a nub. I don't allow the other person to reset. I don't touch gloves at the beginning of the fight. The bell rings, let's go. It's the person who wants it most that's going to reach out and grab that victory in that moment.

0:41If you're the kind of person that's willing to do anything to win, you're the kind of person that's willing to put up with anything to win. That is Ronda Rousey, and this is High Performance. Today, a conversation recorded in America with one of the most successful sports stars on the planet, the first female UFC champion. Rhonda emotionally opens up about the secrets behind her success and tearfully tells us why she no longer feels welcome in the UFC, the sport where she made her name. I'm Jake Humphrey, and alongside Damien Hughes, we learn from the stories, struggles and successes of our guests, allowing you to find your version of high performance.

1:25So let's do it and welcome the incredible Ronda Rousey to the show. And before we do, a quick word from our valued partners. Before we get going, just to let you know that you can now enjoy a free trial of High Performance Plus, where you can get early access, ad-free content, exclusive masterclasses and high-performance originals. Just download the High Performance app from the App Store. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead.

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3:34Rhonda, how are you doing? Fantastic. How are you? Very well, thanks. It's nice to see you. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Welcome to my country. What do you think high performance is? High performance. I think it's performing above yourself as, you know, above your average. And when did you first realize it's something that you could do and do it regularly? Ooh, I think it was just something that I found in competition, from doing competition. And even at a very young age, like my mom, she would have me do like multiple divisions in a day. I would do like three divisions. I would do my weight and the age up, my age and the weight up, and then my weight and age.

4:17And so I would go from mat to mat to mat to mat, win three divisions at a time as like, you know, an 11-year-old, 12-year-old. And so I wouldn't, it was those kind of situations where I didn't like feel overwhelmed by it. It was more like, oh, I'm going to win three divisions today. and I would get really hyped about the challenge and motivated by it. And I would almost perform better when it was a more challenging day with more opponents and more higher quality opponents. And so that's when I started to realize that high pressure situations brought the best out of me. And that's why I think having a conversation now is really interesting because you've been competing like that, pushing yourself to the limit since you were 11, as you've just described.

5:04You're a UFC Hall of Famer. You were voted the greatest sportswoman in the world in 2015. You lived one of your other dreams of fighting in WWE, but you're also now a mom. You're a retired athlete. So what and who is the person sitting in front of us today if they're not competing on a regular basis like you used to? I mean, I feel like I'm still the same person. I'm just like the other factions of my personality that other people don't usually see at TV. So I'm a farmer. I'm a rancher. I have a regenerative wagyu and poultry ranch and, yeah, a writer. Now I just came out with a book and now creatively writing.

5:46I have a comic book coming out soon, and I'm interning at the WME Story Department, learning how to write coverages for scripts and stuff like that. And I hope to be a teacher someday, too. I was taught judo for free as a kid with the understanding that if you were taught for free, you teach for free. And when my boys graduate from high school in two and a half years, and me and my husband moved to Hawaii, we plan on opening like a dojo for local kids so they can come train for free. Amazing. So you're happy? Yeah. Yeah. I would say I'm happier now than I've ever been. But, you know, what's it called?

6:23I do very well in high-pressure situations, but they really stress me out. It's a little out of high anxiety, which brings out a higher focus and a high performance. but it's taxing and I've been competing at the highest level for decades. So it's nice to not have that next big event looming over my head anymore. I bet. One thing that I do want to talk about is, and I know you will have discussed this in numerous interviews, is what happened with your dad. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because I, like you, have a similar, not identical experience. I lost my grandmother to suicide, right, when I was older than you would have been as a teenager.

7:07It's a very, I found it a very strange emotion, because everyone on the outside who has never experienced what that's like, they kind of try and empathise with you and understand, and I don't think that they really could. And my overriding emotion was, how was your grandson not enough to keep you on the earth? and I just wonder whether you you're able to relate to that kind of emotion what was happening in your world at the time when you lost your dad um well I was like eight so I mean other people I feel like they just didn't know what to say so no one really like approached me about it or talked to me about it um but for me when I when I found out what he was going through and why he did it I I understood.

7:54I felt like I would have done the same thing. He had a terminal diagnosis, was in chronic pain all the time. He was going to lose use of his legs and then his body from the neck down, and he didn't want us to see him like that. He was used to being a provider. We were already tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt, and he didn't want to be a drain on the family. And so, I mean, I would have liked to have had him for as long as possible, but I wouldn't have wanted him to, you know, endure pain past what he felt he was capable of. Did you have any idea? Because I remember with my grandma, like, seeing her just a few days before, and really she said, oh, I don't feel in a great place, and I kind of dismissed it.

8:38I wonder whether you had any sense of what your dad was going through. You know, he was really good at hiding it, but there were just, like, little things. Like, he just stopped driving me places. He couldn't sit up in the car long enough without pain. Like, he started having, I started noticing there's pillows everywhere for him to put behind his back and things like that. And, yeah, it was just, he was not as active. He was, like, sitting in our chair in the living room all of the time. And in hindsight, you know, I realized those things. But, you know, as a kid, you're, you know, kind of self-absorbed with what's going on with you.

9:17There's a really interesting study, Bonder, that was done in the UK where they looked at athletes that pursued Olympic ambitions. And one interesting pattern they found is that an awful lot of high achievers had experienced some kind of trauma early on in their life. So the paper they produced was called From Trauma to Triumph. and without being crass about something as sensitive as your father and the decision he took I'm interested if you can look back now with the benefit of the years that have passed and see what did that teach you that you feel helped you go on to achieve your own success?

10:00Well I think it forced me to look for an outlet and at that time I was a swimmer and competing and sports and that was kind of the way that I was able to express myself and to get all that you know energy out and have something to to focus on but it's also what kind of made me because I was a swimmer then it made me kind of get I was never really that into swimming but it made me like it less because there was a lot of time to think about things because you're under the water and you're swimming and stuff like that. So when I got into judo, it was, it just kind of became escape from things because you're forced to be so entirely in the moment.

10:44Like nothing exists besides what you're doing. There's no five minutes ago or five minutes from now. It's just what you're doing. And so kind of being able to focus on something that demands 100 % of retention became, you know, my medicine that I found for myself, which is why I'd, you know, trained for hours and hours on end. And even when I was older, why I would, you know, work on one thing for hours. It's because giving something that kind of focus for that much time was a reprieve from what I was going through. So the people that haven't read the book, would you mind just describing the mindset of a young Ronda Rousey competing in judo at a young age, like, what was happening in that brain?

11:28What was happening on that mat? Well, yeah, the fuck you mentality. I could write novels on it. But yeah, there's certain things that I feel like fighters need to have. And it's like, you know, strength, skill, work ethic, and there's got to be like some fuck you in you. And it's, you can tell when you see someone who's just competing, and someone that's really trying to hurt somebody. I think it's just a safe environment where those things are allowed and you don't have to control yourself. You have a referee or someone else there to stop you. And, you know, when you have that much like pent up frustration, anger at what's unfair in the world.

12:12I don't know. It's something that I love and I'm great at in a kind of way. And I don't have to feel guilty about it. I'm actually, like, praised for it. And I'm able to do amazing things with that. And that's one reason why I feel like combat sports are, like, one of the best outlets for kids going through a really troubled time. Because you're always taught that any kind of, like, negative emotion or action is bad. And it's just such a great way to channel all those things into something, you know, productive and positive. But, you know, at that age, I just wanted to, like, be, like, respected and be great at something.

12:51You know, I was, like, the littlest of all my sisters. And as a swimmer, I was just, like, mediocre. You know, I wasn't winning anything. And so once I won my first judo tournament, I got, like, addicted to that feeling of, like, I won. And it was kind of weird. Well, judo is not a big sport here. So at school, it was like I had an alter ego. I was like this nerd at school. And then I would go to judo on the weekends. And I was like this up-and-coming prodigy of judo. And I'd go back to school and be a nerd, you know? So it became like the place where I had not just the most self-respect, but outsider respect and status and stuff like that.

13:31See, I'm interested to hear you talk about the addiction to winning because I'm sort of a boxing coach. And the bits in your book that I found most painful to read were when you spoke about the relationship you had with some of those coaches. And I'm wondering about whether that addiction put you in those situations that in normal circumstances would be unacceptable, but you decided to find a way of normalizing them. And I'm interested if you'd tell us a little bit about those relationships. I think if you're the kind of person that's willing to do anything to win, you're the kind of person that's willing to put up with anything to win.

14:16And especially in a obscure sport like judo, there's not a lot of high-quality coaches in the United States, and there's so many people vying for the very limited time and attention. And so in order to get that, you're willing to put up with behaviors normally wouldn't put up with or not speak up when you see other people being talked to in a way. What sort of behavior? Treated in a way. What sort of behaviors? What would you say with your judo coach was the lowest? They're allowed to yell at you. They're allowed to insult you, and you can't say anything back. My coach when I was 16 years old dislocated my jaw.

14:54He shouldn't have been putting that kind of force on a 16-year-old girl's jaw. and but at the time I was like oh this is just what I need to be tough you know this is what I need to be able to or you know it's just like this is what I have to put up with to get the best training that there is and we had like a coach big Jim who would like go on these rants about how women can't defend themselves against men and would like grab us by the neck and be like well with Cila what would you do like like kind of like part of his grant and he even did the same thing like you know to my mom once at a judo clinic and she like yelled at him on the spot but like this is someone who did this publicly in front of people i'm not making this up he felt safe to do that well i think it was because no one could stand up to them because they're like the kings of their little fiefdoms and there's no oversight there's no anything they're the national coach so this is what you you have to put up with so when he would like go on these rants, I would literally like be inwardly rolling my eyes and be like, here goes Big Jim on his, you know, his rant about how women can't defend themselves.

15:58And he's grabbing my neck and I'm just having to sit through this so he can just shut up and train me. And I know that I could kill him right now, but what is that going to do? If I mouth off at him, he's going to, you know, kick me out or whatever. And then where else am I going to train? And so you're kind of stuck in a position with no options. And then you're conditioned at a very young age to accept whatever behavior you have to in order to get the best training. Later, like with my coach Edmund in MMA, he'd become like a father figure and a sibling and then also a coach. And it just became too much control over my life and wanting to know where I was and what I was doing at all times.

16:40And it got to a point where me and my family literally had to stage an intervention and be like, these are the boundaries in black and white. and we either adhere to these boundaries or we can't continue on as player and coach, but it was because I was a professional in bringing in large amounts of money that I could put my foot down and I could dictate the boundaries. Whereas when I was an amateur athlete and working with the national coaches where there was no choice, I just had to put up with it or... What advice would you give to anybody watching this now that might find themselves in a situation where those kind of unacceptable behaviors, maybe not as extreme as someone dislocating your jaw, but where they feel this is a little bit uncomfortable, this is a bit unacceptable?

17:28I would always have a plan B. I would always be, I would always have an alternative in mind. And at that point in my life, I felt like there was no alternative. and if you feel like there isn't, you should be piecing one together at all times and always have something that you can fall back on or a change of plan so you don't feel like you're trapped in a situation. Did you ever feel like walking away? I mean, I did at one point. After the 2008 Olympics, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to get an apartment and a dog and be a bartender and I'll be happy with that. And I wanted so badly to be happy with that.

18:11but after a while, I just, I don't know, I couldn't force contentment upon myself, which I desperately wanted to, but you know what people watch in the bars a lot is MMA, so I was sitting in a bar watching MMA, being like, I just want to be a bartender, and I'd be watching this on TV and think like, oh, he did that wrong, oh, no, he should have done that, And so I would basically call these matches and correct the fighters while I was standing behind a bar. And people would be like, you don't know what you're talking about. You're some dumb chick. I'm like, I got Olympic medal in judo. And they were like, judo doesn't really work in a fight.

18:53So I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder not to prove that I am a great fighter, but also that judo is a really effective martial art and that women can do it. And I don't know why I found these things personally offended. I was personally offended by people thinking these things. And I don't know. I tried. I tried to not do it is basically what I'm saying. But I couldn't not fight. So how do you go from sitting in that bar watching MMA to becoming the most famous female MMA fighter that we've ever known? How did it begin? What did you do? Well, it actually started when I was doing judo because on Thursdays, the coaches wouldn't show up.

19:41I would just fucking destroy everybody. Like, in the UFC, not in the UFC, all the guys. I was just tapping out everybody and throwing everybody. And, you know, judo, maximum efficiency, minimum effort. I'm a fucking ninja, you know? What I'm intrigued with here, though, is like, wanting to fight in the UFC is one thing, but making it happen is another. Like, what do you do? Do you pick up the phone to Dana White? Do you, like, how does it happen? And like, you've broken down doors for other women to walk through for the rest of all time. Well, since there was like a glass ceiling there, the spot below the glass ceiling was the Strikeforce Championship, which was basically only there because Gina Carano, her dad was connected with the Las Vegas Athletic Commission and started sanctioning women's MMA fights just for her.

20:33And she ended up getting, you know, so much support and everything with her matches that they basically created the Strikeforce 145 division championship for her to fight for. And, you know, one division. They ended up adding a 135-pound division later as well. but I had fought previously at 154 because we weighed in the day before for judo and I had like years of battling like eating disorders and stuff like that. And after I was vegan for a while, it really helped like reset my relationship with food. And what damaged that relationship with food? It was just having to make weight on a deadline since a very young age and not doing it healthily.

21:22You know, like you're 14 years old. you're 14 years old and you're expected to lose five pounds by the end of the week, I'm like, I'm going to eat 10 cookies this morning and then not eat for the rest of the day. You know, I wasn't getting any help. So I started to, yeah, not have a healthy relationship with food. I was training somewhere where I didn't feel wanted. The best part of my day was when I was eating basically. And so it just fostered a dysfunctional relationship with food. And then I was starting to do all those different kinds of training and stuff like that. Boxing really made me drop a bunch of weight.

21:53And so once I started doing MMA, my weight was dropping to where I was walking around at my fighting weight. I was walking around below my fighting weight. And then this chick Misha comes along and wins the 135 championship title. And I was like, oh my God, this girl's actually cute. Like she actually like looks cute. And it wasn't very common in MMA back And so I was like, there's an opportunity here. Like, two hot chicks fighting. Like, everyone's going to go nuts, especially if, like, the match is awesome. And we create some drama with it. And I was just, you know, I saw an opportunity there.

22:34And I seized it. And I was really afraid of her losing if she defended against anybody first. And she was the one that I needed to beat. So then I basically started like a social media media campaign of like, I should be able to have the next title shot because I'm hot. And so then she was like, you know, like all the other women at the time playing the Miss America role of trying not to offend anybody and take, you know, be as non-controversial as possible. and was saying, oh, you know, Rhonda doesn't deserve the shot. She's never fought at 135. You know, Sarah Coffin deserves the next shot. She'd beat Misha before.

23:18She was a previous champion. She was a number one contender. You know, it makes sense. So then we were basically, on an MMA podcast, we were invited to debate our points live. But can I jump in? Because I think for people listening to this conversation, there's also the context that Dana White, the head of the MMA, of UFC, has also come out and said that no women would ever fight on a UFC cast. Yeah, deadpan, didn't he? He said, like, never, didn't he? So going back to that, we got on for this podcast. I completely obliterated her in the argument, had her agreeing with me by the end of it. Match was set.

24:03But when I finally spoke to Dana, he was wearing a picture of me naked on his shirt when I met him the first time. No. And I was like, foot in the door. Is that true? Yeah, because I was on the cover of ESPN Body. Well, nothing. I mean, I had hand wraps. They were pink. He had that on his t-shirt when I met him. Did he know he was meeting you? No, maybe. Did you point it out? It was kind of like one of those Spider-Man memes. So I was like, ah. But then I knew I was like, can I talk to you? I need to ask your advice about something. After it was, I was there for Manny Gamburian's way in. I was like holding a water bottle.

24:43Maybe he knew I'd be there. I don't know. But when I talked to him, he said he couldn't look at MMA news anywhere without seeing my name on it. I made sure to be on everybody's basement blog to speak as controversially and be as polarizing as possible. And so he couldn't escape seeing media about me constantly. He couldn't escape seeing my face on ESPN body. And so I made it so he couldn't get away from me. So by the time that I actually coincidentally ran into him, he was primed to be convinced that I was the one. But yeah, we didn't even talk about the UFC or getting me into the UFC. I just asked his advice about different things at the time because I figured...

25:28If you ask somebody for advice and they give it to you, then you become a reflection. Your success becomes a reflection of them. Yeah. So you wanted him to feel like he'd had a big part to play in what happened to you. I just wanted him to feel like he was invested in my success. Yeah. And what I've learned from bartending is people don't tip you because they like alcohol. They tip you because they like you. And you have a very short amount of time to convince this person, I'm awesome, give me$20. And so I kind of took those skills of, you know, how can I, like, get this person to be my friend very quickly, along with how can I get this person to invest my success, along with how can I even get, you know, an audience with this person in the first place and think that I'm a good investment all at the same time.

26:17Do you remember what you said to Dana? I asked him because I was, like, dealing with increased notoriety and stuff like that, being on ESPN Body and stuff like that. And I asked him, how does he deal with it? How do you deal with all of this scrutiny and being in the public eye and all this stuff? It's very new to me. Very flattering. Mm-hmm. But he also gave me some great advice as well. And he said that he was in the Time Magazine's ranking of most influential people. And Time Magazine told him that it wasn't because most people voted for him. is because he had more people than anyone else write into Time magazine about how it was a terrible idea for him even to be considered.

27:04And he said that the time and energy and influence you're having on this person's life to make them type out this long letter about why you shouldn't be on the list is a lot more influence than someone just clicking yes. Wow. And it's not... That's a brilliant doodle move, isn't it? Using the momentum. Exactly. Using momentum for you. Yes, and so he was saying, like, influence doesn't only have to be, you know, approval and stuff like that. So, and I was like, oh, my God, that's so awesome. You're so smart. No, I didn't say it like that. I was much less, you know, patronizing. I meant it. It was really cool advice.

27:42And, yeah, he said that, he told me later that after I left the room, never talked about MMA or UFC or me being the UFC at all, is that I left the room, and he called Lorenzo right away, and he was like, I think I'm going to have to do this. I think I'm going to have to sign this chick. Because we were supposed to talk for 15 minutes. We talked for like 45 minutes. Yeah. But it was just bartending, you know. And it happened. At this point, I want to share a line that you've got in your book about your time in UFC. You said, and this is about the kind of fighter that you were in UFC. You said a lot of people run from their limits.

28:18If you're a champion, you're supposed to be chasing your limits with a vengeance. So how did you decide what kind of fighter to be? Because I look at your time as a fighter in UFC and just think you were like a whirlwind from minute one till the exit, constantly fighting, constantly doing the media, constantly keeping people on their toes. How do you describe your approach to UFC? How I would describe it, I guess it was just the way that I fought, which had to just be constant pressure and offense to constantly keep the other person reacting to me. Because if I'm standing over here and you're standing over there, then the amount of things that you could do is near infinite.

29:01But if I'm doing something to you, the amount of reactions you have to that are much more finite. And so if you watch me fight, I'd never reset and bounce around and then come back in again. It's all one long exchange. I don't allow the other person to reset. I don't touch gloves at the beginning of their fight. The bell rings. It's go. And that was something that I learned from judo that my mom taught me, that most fights are won within the first exchange. The first time you touch someone and she would teach, throw off the grip. Second you touch them, you throw it. Second you go. Because other people need a moment to get ready.

29:38And that's the moment that you take them out. And plus, I had to have a bunch of fights in one day. You know, you're trying to be as fresh as possible for the finals. So I was always trying to finish quickly as fast as I could. And a lot of people, they think, oh, I have a fight. This is the only fight I have today. I have 25 minutes for this fight. Whereas, you know, I was working with the limitation of having a decade of experiencing concussion symptoms more often than not. I couldn't take that kind of punishment. So I had to end fights quickly. I had to constantly keep the person reacting to me, which is, you know, offense is the best defense kind of a thing.

30:18And so that was the way that it had to be. But it also forced me to create the most efficient fighting style that I think has ever existed. You mentioned really briefly that, you know, not getting hit was important for you because you were experiencing concussion symptoms. Would you mind just sharing that story with people that haven't read the book and don't realize actually what was going on in your world at that time? Right. Well, there wasn't a lot of research about CTE and long-term effects of repeated concussions when I was a kid. And so it's the kind of thing, if you had a concussion, you would just be told to push through it and tough it out and to don't be a wuss.

30:58And so if you keep training through a concussion and keep taking these impacts over and over again, you re-aggravate it over and over again. So a concussion, if you just rested afterward, you would probably get over it in a couple of days. I would keep experiencing those symptoms for weeks, even months on end. What symptoms? Symptoms like photo vision, like spots in your vision, like someone took a picture of you. Headaches, nausea, numbness. I would get like my fingers, my lips, and my tongue would get numb. Even blacking out. You can even black out on, you know, for hours. It's like, I think my worst concussion, I got thrown on the back of my head at the finals of the Pan American Championships in Argentina.

31:52And I completely blacked out from the fight until I woke up the next morning. I lost that whole chunk of time. and you know these are things that I didn't rest after that I kept training after that and kept taking falls and impacts every night until weeks later I finally started to feel better and so every time you get a concussion it's easier to get the next one and so by the time I got into MMA standing in the pocket and banging it out like a Diaz brother was just not in the cards for me Any significant strike that was landed on me, I would end up seeing stars and getting concussion symptoms afterward.

32:32And so I was playing a game of zero errors from the very beginning. And even though my fight's very fast, there's 50 rounds of sparring that goes into every fight. And so then it started to be that hits that were less and less significant were starting to give me concussions. And then right before my first loss, I slipped downstairs, knocked myself out on the stairs while tearing my knee out at the same time and went into that fight already concussed. And then, you know, after that match, I just, it was like a tipping point where even like a jab, a slap would give me a concussion. and then I went in for another match and same thing first time I got touched I was completely out of my feet and I just knew that I didn't even though I'd never been faster or stronger or better mixed martial artist I just didn't have the hardware to continue taking those hits and fighting at the top level so I had to make the decision to leave while not really having the freedom to talk about it because I wanted to go to the WWE and they already have a complicated history of concussions.

33:49And if they knew, I don't think they would have hired me. And if they knew how often I was getting concussions while working for them, they wouldn't have allowed me to perform as much as I did.

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36:07what upset me when I was reading some of the details of those concussions you were going through is I made reference before that my dad was a boxing coach and one of his mantras was that it wasn't his job to be brave on behalf of his athlete so he'd often intervene if he if he could see what they couldn't and I'm interested that did anybody ever try and step in for you because I get that you wanted to keep fighting and your nature, but where was the people around you that were trying to protect you and look at the long game for you? The thing is I was very good at hiding it, hiding that I was hurt.

36:50I also came from a sport where there was decisions from the referee, so you had to make it look like if you're hurt, you were never hurt. If you're tired, you're never tired. and sparring and stuff like that. If someone hit me and I was seeing stars or had photo vision, I didn't want anyone to know that. I was embarrassed that anyone could hurt me and kind of ashamed of it and maybe in denial. Did you lie to doctors? I mean, yeah, I didn't tell them as, you know. I certainly didn't say I was going and concussed to a fight when I was. They were like, how are you feeling? Fine. That's the end of the questioning.

37:28I did ask Edmund if he ever noticed anything. He said, now that I'd spoken up about it, he was like, you know what? You would go to the locker room. There was like a small little locker room with just a shower and a bench. And you would shut yourself in the locker room and turn off the lights. And you would say, the lights were bothering you. And I would shut myself in the room and be in the dark for a while and then come out and say I was fine. Does it worry you now? Because we know so much about head injuries and concussions and stuff? Is it something that you've thought about or do you not?

38:00I mean, before I went to WWE and had to get all those brain scans and everything checked out, I was literally crying every single time that I lost my keys or my phone. My husband, I was like, oh my God, it's dead. I don't know my phone is. I couldn't think of this word. It's like, you know, and I was constantly like crying, really upset about it. but then when I finally got scanned for WWE which I was really really nervous about they were like and they were like wow we're really surprised at how good your brain looks we do have there's Alzheimer's and dementia in my family from family members that were not you know taking all the impacts that I was so for now everything looks great but for the future I've just you know I'm just really appreciating all the time that I have with my family.

38:53And, you know, I never wanted to put a perfect body in the ground. I wanted to use everything that I had while I had it. And I didn't feel like I was saving myself for a long life. I just wanted to like, your body is the greatest tool you'll ever own. And I wanted to use it until I was down to a nub, you know, like the hammer that it was my body. I wanted to do everything and build everything that I could. And so, I mean, I don't regret anything at all. And if I end up paying for it later, that's the price that I'm willing to pay. Can I ask you about your attitude to being a champion, though? Sure.

39:35Because there's a really... Yeah, well, I think there's a really interesting analogy that you use about watching a documentary of a polar bear. The polar bear. I was going to say, you're going to have to say the polar bear? Fuck yeah, tell me about the polar bear. No, you tell us about the polar bear. Oh, so the polar bear.

39:55Well, this is so funny coming from me because I'm a woman. But I was watching this documentary about a polar bear, and it was basically saying that at the beginning of the breeding season, the male polar bear will find a female and basically fend off any other males that come for the entire raiding season. And it starts off and he's looking all white and fluffy and all jacked from eating seals. And every single male that comes, he's got to fight again and again and again and again. And he can't go to eat and he can't rest. He can't anything. All these other male polar bears are all eating seals and coming in all fresh.

40:37and this guy has been fighting for weeks and as it goes on, his fur is like covered in blood and he is like really thin and emaciated and by the end of the breeding season, you know, he's like, okay, bye. And then the girl polar bear goes off but like I always thought like that's what a champion looks like, you know. You're defending the top of the mountain and you don't wait until it's the optimal time for you when you're feeling great. You defend against all comers at all times. How much pride do you have when you reflect on that period where there's no question, it's undeniable that you were being put under huge pressure by UFC, by Dana White to keep fighting.

41:18You were the girl that always said yes. You were always there. You were always accepting any fight that came your way. You must be so proud of what you managed, the places you managed to take yourself to in that period. Yeah, I am. I mean, now, more in hindsight, It's just so, like, in it at the time. That's why I got this tattoo. This is how many seconds it took me to win all my fights. Go on, read them out. 26, 57, 25, 25, 49, 25, 39, 267. That was still not... You don't have to make excuses for that, by the way. Oh, my goodness, you still won the fight. That was still in the first round, all right?

42:02All right. 267, 54, 289, 658, 66, 16, 14, and 34. And which of all those numbers are you most proud of? 14. Talk us about that. Well, I was against Kat, who was actually my only opponent, who I still keep in contact with. I think she's fantastic.

42:28She actually came out with a flying knee. She just came out right at me, which I was like, balls. Good on you. She came out with a flying knee. I sidestepped. She got me in a headlock, and she was taking me down with a headlock, and it was only because of all the years of judo and knocking myself in the head, giving me all those concussions, that I had to round off off of my head to get. She was on her all fours, and I had been practicing this armbar, and I basically looped my arm through backwards. I'd been practicing it the other way around. So I did it for the first time ever upside down in 14 seconds at Staples Center in my hometown.

43:07Yeah, every single moment that happened in that fight had never happened before in the UFC, but that's like the fighting style that I created for myself. It's all concepts and being able to not reciting things that you memorized, but being able to make decisions based on the situation that you're in and the most effective way to get where you want to go. and so I felt like it was the perfect example of what my fighting style is and that's being able to invent something that's never been done before on the spot and win a fight in 14 seconds. And it's still the fastest ever title submission in history.

43:43Thank you. Thank you. Go on, I'll join you in that one. Thanks. I was interested in a concept. I don't know if you're familiar with something called the Deschapel Coup and what it means is there was a guy, I think it's in the 18th century, that when he used to play chess... I think Dave Chappelle. No, not Dave Chappelle, no, the Dave Chappelle. So when he would play chess, he would always have to give his opponent an advantage because psychologically what that meant was if he was defeated, he almost had the safety net of going, you only beat me because you started at an advantage. Whereas if he won, it was a sign of his own superiority that even though I handicapped myself, I was still able to come out on top.

44:26And you don't refer to it as that. You refer to it as the contender's luxury, where you were going up against these women that almost had advantages over you, that they didn't have to drive the PR machine. They weren't the ones that were under the weight of expectation that you were experiencing. And I'm wondering if you'd tell us a little bit around how you used the contender's luxury or the De Chapelle coup to your advantage. Well, I think it was more I knew it was never going to be fair. And I was winning unfair fights all the time. And it was that you had to be the best, not just the best on your worst day, but you have to be able to win every match twice on your worst day, which is what my mom taught me at a very young age of not wallowing in self-pity if a call doesn't go your way or something.

45:23You know, you get screwed over in a match and she'd be like, it's your fault. You lost. Who cares? The referee screwed you over. You had five minutes to throw that girl and you didn't. Why are you already through her? You didn't throw her twice. And so it just reminded me that I'm not supposed to just be better. I'm supposed to be leagues better. And so every time I was able to beat somebody that had those advantages over me, it wasn't like, I'm not just better, I'm leagues better than you. Well, then tell us about that because you're a mum now and there'll be lots of parents watching this that'll be thinking, how do I get my kids to understand that life isn't fair and it's how you play the hang you dealt with?

46:01You gave us some examples of what your mum had said of she wouldn't allow you to moan or complain. It was still your fault you got beat. How would you advise any parents then to be able to inculcate that way of thinking into their own children? Um... Man, that's a tough one because my girl hasn't started doing sports yet. I only experienced what my mom did with me. Winning is a bitch, but revenge is a motherfucker. I was 11. She would tell me that I would always get so devastated when I lost. This isn't like a new thing. It would break my heart. And my first junior nationals I lost, and I shut myself in my room and cried for a week.

46:50I wouldn't come out. I was 12. And my mom never told me not to be upset, never told me that it's okay to lose. She told me that it's a huge advantage that I have and that I let it hurt me and still keep doing it over and over again. Because like, she would say, you want it more than anybody else. And that's why in every match, there's a moment where it's up for grabs and it's the person who wants it most that's going to take out. It's the person that wants it most. It's the person who wants it most that's going to reach out and grab that victory in that moment. It taught me that being willing to get your heart broken over and over and over again and not allowing yourself to carry less and not guarding yourself from that hurt or becoming callous to it is a huge advantage.

47:43And so yeah, that's why I take losses really, really hard. But it's also why I train so much harder than anyone else. Your big defeat in Australia clearly hurt. I mean, we've both read many books over the years. I haven't read very many books that have shared the searing, it's not even pain, it felt like so much more than that for you. I mean, there was a there was a line in your book after your defeat to Holly Holm this is November 2015 the phrase in your book is dying would be better than this it didn't really hurt that much yeah I mean no one else will get it everyone will be like you made such a big deal of it you should just get over it and all these things but those were all said by people that would never be in that situation so there's a reason for that The only reason I'm in that situation is because I allow things to hurt that bud and that allows something like that to be that important to me.

48:47And, you know, no one is ever going to get it. And the pursuit of being understood by strangers is a, you know, a futile one. And for those that haven't read the book, would you describe the pain for them? I didn't want to leave my house. I didn't want to do anything. And my husband now, my boyfriend then, was like, you got it. leave the house. It's been two weeks. I'm like, no, I am Gollum. I live in the house. And he's like, no, just get coffee. Let's just go get coffee. Drags me out of the house to get some coffee. All the paparazzi that have been camped outside of my house show up, start snap snippeting away.

49:27Wanted to like, you know, let us get footage of a real loser in the wild, you know, I'm like, oh, God, this is the worst. So after I knocked all my teeth loose, I had to go get root canals on all my bottom teeth at once. And I'm literally sitting there after getting shot by paparazzi all morning, getting four root canals at once, being forced to watch a television. I can't talk. And on TV comes TMZ Sports. Ronda Rousey comes out of hiding. and it's this footage of me and like footage of me getting knocked out on repeat while I'm getting like my teeth drilled into getting four root canals at once.

50:10Can't talk. Fucking stuck into the sea and being like, this is the darkest timeline. I am in hell right now. This is the worst. And it was so bad that I was like literally laughing to myself. I was like, this is like the humor of the universe just trying to like, you know, kick me while I'm down. Like four root canals while watching your humiliation play out on TV for millions. It wasn't fun. And how much of that pain do you still feel today? Not the root canals. Not the root canals. I took the nerves out. Yeah. You know, now I just kind of laugh at it. Also, just kind of like, it's just dulled over time.

50:53But it's kind of like, I don't know. it used to bother me a lot how much people reveled in it and how much people enjoyed it but now i'm just did they revel in it yeah they did you know what i what i struggled with a bit around this time was i was i was reading the book written by someone that had been and like the greatest like they had won their fights as you've just read on your arm with your tattoos so quickly. They dominated so brilliantly. They had promoted the sport so wonderfully. No one had ever done it before. But that one defeat didn't take away all of that success. And I struggled reading the book thinking, why did you allow that defeat to define you so much when what had gone before was many, many, many more times over success?

51:49I think I had it in my mind that I had to make me being the greatest fighter of all time undisputed, something that couldn't be disputed even by the biggest idiot. And then it got to the point where everyone thought that I was exposed and a fraud and all hype and that everything that I had done had meant nothing. I had to go back and watch some of my old fights because I was I got into screenplays and stuff and someone asked me to write my own biopic screenplay so I was like all right why not I'll give it a crack and I hadn't watched my old fights in forever god damn so fucking good and I don't even want to like say like every single little motion was like fucking law and um and I was like inventing all these little things in the moment that like someone who doesn't know fighting wouldn't even realize how awesome it was like I would backflip around somebody's guard or like flip from one side of the side control to the other like these little things like um there was one fight where I stacked this chick with her legs, with my arms one way, and then came around backwards around her guard and then like trapped her arm with my shin without looking at it.

53:11And just like little things that people that sit around watching UFC's greatest knockouts over and over, they're not going to realize how like brilliant like every little iota of movement was. Yes. And yeah, now I'm just like, oh, well, only great can recognize greatness. And so like it made me realize that I'm at such a higher level than everybody else. And everything was so efficient and so well done that unless you know what you're looking at, it just all looks the same to you. I look back at that because it was just like, you know, you can't tell in my house that I was a fighter. There's no, like, pictures of me and my husband doing MMA or wrestling or anything like that.

53:56It's a very normal-looking house. I don't sit around thinking about, like, hey, remember when he did that thing? And so when I was forced to go back and look at it, I was like, god damn, you're the fucking greatest. And I'm so fucking proud because I was forced to go and look at it. I don't wake up and think it. But when I watched it, I was just like, damn. But what strikes me there is, like, the mental space you had in the moment to be able to think two or three steps ahead in terms of I'm going to need this arm in a second to do that. But it also strikes me that you had the mental space to actually stop and go back and look at your fights afterwards.

54:33Do you think you'd have benefited from having more time between the fights to do precisely that rather than keep saying yes when Dana White was announcing in the press conference after one fight that you're going to fight again eight weeks later. Do you feel if you'd have learned to say no to the demands and give yourself that space, you could have extended your career? Well, I didn't learn to say no. I didn't learn to say yes. I made a deal that you bring me into the UFC, I will be your fucking girl. I will fight whenever you need me to fight, whoever you need me to fight. And that was part of the deal.

55:13And no, I don't wish that I reneged on my deal. And I am happy that all the women after me don't feel beholden to that, that he took a risk on me. In hindsight, it looks like it wasn't a risk at all, but he was a huge risk at the time, especially with MMA already being illegal in several states. It might be a bad look on the UFC to have like a woman cut up and bleeding and getting beat on television when they were calling it human cockfighting and stuff like that. It was a big risk. And so, no, I don't regret promising to do that. I don't regret, you know, making good on my promise. Let me ask you this.

55:50Did you leave anything on the table at the end of your UFC career? No, I literally left when my body couldn't fight anymore. You know, I gave it every single iota of my being that I had. And for a lot of people, that wasn't enough. But for me, that's the only thing that would be enough. You said in your book, my body took as much as it could until it broke. And they hated me because I didn't have more to give. It's pretty accurate in my mind. They hated you because you didn't have more to give. Well, you didn't experience it, but yeah. Explain that. Explain what it's like to have everyone hate you.

56:35Surely they were saying, you know what, you've done everything. I can't think of a champion that gave more than you. So why were people not able to go at that point? Do you know what you've given your everything? I don't know. Ask the MMA media that. They're the ones saying it. What were they saying then? Nothing. That I, you know, was a fraud and I was hype and I was exposed and I was never anything and just lucky and all of these things. And that I wasn't gracious or a good loser or, you know, every other thing that I, you know, just assume at this point because I don't take the time to read it.

57:14But yeah, everything that could be said that was negative was said. And, you know, I feel like I'm really vilified by MMA media at this point. And I'm not really, you know, well, welcome back, which is why I haven't gone to a UFC fight since because I'm pretty sure if I walked into to the arena, I'd be booed. No. Yeah. That's how it feels. But. I don't understand. Like, I don't understand that. Do you understand that? I mean, I live it.

57:59And why does that bother you? Why? I guess I wish I didn't. But, you know, I gave them everything I had and it wasn't enough. But that's why a lot of people don't give everything that they have because they don't want to face if it wasn't enough. But I realize it was enough for me, but not for people on the outside. But it really wasn't for them. You know, I've never experienced anything like you, but in a much smaller world back in the UK, I've had loads of shit and criticism that feels unjust and it's given me the hardest, most difficult things I've ever been through in my life. And if it wasn't for my family around me, I would have really struggled.

58:46But I think that I see it differently to how everyone else sees it. And when I speak to others about it, they go, no, I don't really... And I'm like, well, no, I've lived it. I know that that's what I've had because I've read the fucking messages. And I wonder whether I'd almost say the same to you. Like... Not to trample all over your lived experience, but you would have seen the negative and the horrible. But there is so much great and so much love out there for what you did. I'm sure it's out there. I'm just saying that, and I appreciate it, but specifically in the MMA community, I feel like not so much.

59:27Outside of it, I've seen the average person on the street. Like, people that I meet, like, at the grocery store and, you know, on the playground with my kid, everyone's so nice and gracious. But I'm just saying from, like, from the world that I came from, I don't think that is the way that I'm really viewed. But I don't really be, I don't really, you know, read their media or their comments or anything like that anymore. But is there a particular comment that you did read at the time that you can recall that stays with you? No, I went like cold turkey. I used to, like, it was really bad. I used to wake up in the morning and, like, look at my tagged pictures and read my comments like the morning newspaper.

1:00:21But I had to, you know. Why? Why? because, I don't know, I wanted that hit of outside validation that I'm so happy that I don't seek that anymore. And I feel like maybe that's the only way that I would have been able to have broken from it. But I think if it feels like everybody in the world loves you and is putting you on this pedestal, you feel like you have to keep that going. and when I felt like I lost it, then it was, oh, I can't look at it anymore and every tagged picture, you know, I have people that literally are mentally unwell and spend hours out of their day basically coming after me and my family and my friends, like posting negative stuff on their pages, my pages.

1:01:12If I have tagged pictures open, it's just completely flooded with images of me, you know uh and any kind of embarrassing picture of me like getting knocked out me covering my face when it was all messed up at the airport and um constantly till this day and so like people literally like hound me with that so that I don't look at anything online anymore because that's all it ever is I can't look at the comments I can't look at the pictures because it's just a wall of negativity waiting for me. See, what interests me about that is there's two bits in your story that one of them I thought was a really fascinating competitive advantage and the other one just made me laugh out loud, if I can recount them.

1:02:00There was one when you were fighting that you used to not allow footage out there of what you were doing, so you'd surprise your opponent. And I love that from a competitive point of view. So you were happy to be anonymous. and then the other one that made me laugh was when you remember recounting the sad death of robin williams and you described being sat on a park bench deciding what you were going to post on twitter and then thinking who gives a fuck about my opinion yeah get over yourself sit the fuck down sit down yeah but they were two moments when i sensed in the book that you were actually they're happier in the shadows, not having to be front and center, not telling people what you were doing, not giving people your opinion?

1:02:45Oh, I did. I was forced to realize the difference between outside validation and things that are validating in themselves. And yeah, I realized that I was pandering to people after a while, getting attention to MMA and what I was doing. It was for promotion, it was for a purpose, it was for what I was doing, and it kind of got out of control to the point where I was constantly looking towards that. And my outside perception became intertwined with my perception of myself. and once I was kind of forced to quit that cold turkey and just be in my day, I realized that I get a lot more satisfaction out of cleaning the algae out of a duck pond and watching my ducks get like, oh my God, this is the best ever, than being on a red carpet and then getting a bunch of hot pictures taken of me and putting it on my Instagram and like watching the likes go up to the millions, you know.

1:03:53It was, I, but I feel like I wouldn't have ever, you know, ripped that Band-Aid off if I wasn't forced to. And we can't come towards the end of this conversation without talking about your husband. I mean, I think one of the most moving parts of the book is when you just had that defeat and you're sitting there and you beautifully describe how no one really knew what to do apart from one person who was just staring at you and you felt like without even a word being said, he had your back. and that moment when Travis whispered in your ear, like, you've always been more than just a fighter. He obviously is a wise guy, and I'd love to know what you think he's done for you that has been so important.

1:04:38Oh, God. He's like, we saved each other by what he did. I think he just always saw me as more than the fraction of myself that everybody else wanted to see. And I don't know. He's like, I tell him all the time, it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it wasn't just him. He gave me like a family and, I don't know, like real love. and I mean I could go on and on about him I don't know what else there is to say besides that like you know I feel like more at rest and recovered when he's around you know I don't ever feel like I have to be alone and to have my time you know like our time is my time and yeah I couldn't imagine getting through all of that without him.

1:05:46But he was just so patient and so kind to me. And he never tried to rush me through anything, but he also never tried to enable the worst in me. But he just kept like the crepes and the chocolate coming. And I was just like into smoking a bunch of weed and playing World of Warcraft. And he was just like, I'll get a World Warcraft count two. Okay, I'm going to run raids with you and he's going to help me get all these mounts and he went through it with me and he didn't try to rush me through being depressed or anything like that but he also didn't let me wallow in it. Do you believe him now that you're more than just a fighter?

1:06:26Well, of course I'm more than just a fighter because I don't fight anymore because then I would just cease to exist. But yeah, anyone who criticizes who I am as an MMA fighter is a fucking idiot because I'm fantastic. We've got some quick five questions before we let you go and join your sisters in the bar. What are the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you would ideally buy into? The three things that really matter the most to you. Oh, God. Honesty. I guess gratitude's one. Yeah. Tolerance. Great. You're the third. What advice would you give to a teenage Rhonda just starting out?

1:07:07I don't know, because I don't want to mess with my timeline. I'll just be like, you're gorgeous. You're so beautiful. You're so much prettier than you think you are. I get a lot of insecurity about that. But everything else, I'd be like, oh, you just got to figure it out. I don't know. What's your biggest strength? What's your greatest weakness? Oh, God. My biggest strength is stick-to-itiveness. My biggest weakness is stick-to-itiveness. what's the single best piece of advice you've ever received and why oh lord best piece of advice i don't know that the travis brownie more than just a fighter was pretty clutch at the moment and why it was it was came at the moment that i needed it the most and the final message for people that have listened to this incredible conversation something to leave ring in their ears really your one golden rule if you like for living a high performance life you got to be the best on your worst day because it's just you're not always gonna be on a good day when you need to be at your best and you can't be like oh i just had a bad day you know um my mom would say all the time what if what if the olympics happens on a bad day?

1:08:30What if you break your leg and it'll match? What if you're sick? What if this, this or that? Because you have this one day that your whole life, everything you're training for comes down to, you need to be able to dig deep and still be the best anyway. Rhonda, thank you so much.

1:08:50Damien. Jake. What a fascinating lady. A ball of energy. Very emotional. massively talented, loads to say. I loved that. Yeah, I thought it was a real privilege just to be in the presence of a force of nature. Yeah, and one of the greatest fighters that the world has ever seen, someone that has done something that so few people, even if they have the innate talent to do, don't have the mental resolve to do. And I think my sort of overriding feeling is one of sadness, really, that she's done so much in her life. She achieved such highs and yet feels she's not welcomed by fans of UFC and, you know, obviously is very emotional about it.

1:09:36And I just, I really kind of want her to understand that there are many, many, many reasons to be proud and positive and very few to be sad about. Yeah, well, when we're doing the prep for this, you found that great quote that said, a pioneer, you can always spot them. They're the ones with the arrows in the back. You know, she's been breaking boundaries, glass ceilings however you want to describe it for women in combat sports since she first emerged so that comes at a price you know when people don't like it people do celebrate her demise in the sport but that doesn't mean that she has to buy into that narrative she's writing her own incredible story and it was a privilege to hear some of it the bit I took away was I love that idea of just be your best on your worst day yeah because I think any of us whatever we do we don't have to be in the in the octagon to be able to understand that.

1:10:28We all have our bad days but how we still show up and do our best is still a defining characteristic. And she's funny as well, isn't she? Great sense of humour. Yeah, well in a book she says, doesn't she, that she likes using profane language quite a lot and I think you could see a moment where she said, can I swear? And then she relaxed and then started it. A lot of games were open at that point. Yeah, apologies about that. I really enjoyed that and I wish her all the best. She is one of, my favourite guest for a long time. She was great. Yeah. Like I say, I hope the force of her nature comes through for anybody that's been kind enough to come and join us in listening.

1:11:05Absolutely. Thanks, mate. Well, that's it for today's show. Look, we want to give you even more amazing guests. The best way that you can help us do that is just by clicking the follow button wherever you're listening to this podcast. And remember, chase those world-class basics, remain empathetic, and follow your own version of high performance. See you soon.

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