Ronda Rousey once ruled the Octagon like no one else. She was the first woman signed to the UFC, the first female champion, and a walking armbar merchant who went undefeated in her professional MMA career from 2011 to 2015. But when the fall came with brutal back-to-back losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, it was fast and merciless. Then came the silence.
In 2018, when asked if she’d ever fight again, Rousey shrugged it off with a line that still sticks, “I think it’s just as likely as me going back to another Olympics for judo.” But now, she’s finally explaining why she stepped away, and the truth is more complex than anyone imagined.
Ronda Rousey pulls back the curtain on her struggles with the “feedback loop” of concussions and migraines
Speaking on the Untapped podcast with Spencer Matthews on YouTube, Ronda Rousey opened up about a deeply personal health struggle that plagued her throughout her career, a vicious loop of migraines, concussions, and vision loss. As such, when asked about the reason behind her decision to walk away from the sport, she confessed, “It is concussions but it’s also, we found out that it has a lot to do with migraines.”
The former champion explained that epilepsy runs in her family; her sister, uncle, and great aunt all suffered from it. And how that genetic connection may have played a bigger role in her decline than anyone realized. As a child, Rousey experienced debilitating migraines that sometimes robbed her of her vision.
She stated, “I used to have like an Imitrex pen that I had to stab myself with, you know what I mean? If they started to come on and it would be things like, I would lose big chunks of my vision, you what I mean. They’re called auras, and I would like lose the ability to read, and I would like get these searing headaches, but they kind of stopped when I was younger.”
The symptoms faded as she got older, but resurfaced during her MMA career in ways she didn’t fully understand, until recently. According to her, while consulting with Dr. Bernick at the Cleveland Clinic, she discovered a link between her migraines and an increased sensitivity to concussions. How?
‘Rowdy’ shared, “And he was saying that not all migraines involve a searing headache, that 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, I would, you know, figure, well figures, two of my triggers is bright lights and head impacts.”
MMA: UFC 207-Nunes vs Rousey, December 30, 2016 Las Vegas, NV, USA Ronda Rousey before her match against Amanda Nunes during UFC 207 at T-Mobile Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports, 30.12.2016 22:38:52, 9778715, Amanda Nunes, T-Mobile Arena, NPStrans, Ronda Rousey, MMA, TopPic PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xMarkxJ.xRebilasx 9778715
It got worse with every fight. Bright lights and head shots, two things you can’t avoid in the UFC Octagon, became migraine triggers. At times, Rousey believed she was concussed mid-fight.
What she didn’t know was, “I thought, oh, I have a concussion, I’m out on my feet but I wouldn’t be stumbling around, and I didn’t lose my balance so this is like, I had to retire because this kept happening to me more and more often and to the point where I would like get a jab and I would basically go blind.”
It wasn’t a choice to quit, it was a decision to survive. But these comments do shed more light on why she looked like a shadow of her dominant self during the final two fights of her UFC career!
‘Rowdy’s final losses may have been a result of her medical issues
Ronda Rousey‘s revelation cast a haunting light on her final UFC moments. That highlight reel head kick from Holly Holm at UFC 193? It didn’t just end her championship reign; it could’ve been the start of something far worse.
After all, in 2016, she admitted to s***dal thoughts after the Holm loss, telling Ellen DeGeneres, “Honestly, my thought in the medical room, I was sitting in the corner and was like, ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?” Now we know she was fighting battles the fans never saw.
And the 48-second beatdown by Amanda Nunes at UFC 207? While ‘The Lioness’ retained her title in stunning fashion, unleashing a hellacious barrage on ‘Rowdy’ as referee Herb Dean called a stop to the contest, ‘Rowdy’ may have been compromised from the first strike of the fight itself.
This latest context about her health issues makes Ronda Rousey’s earlier silence more understandable. Despite calls for comebacks and rematches, Rousey never returned. She moved on to the WWE, motherhood, and life outside the cage. And now, with clarity and the benefit of hindsight, she’s finally closing the loop on her MMA story.
In the end, Rousey’s MMA career will always be a mix of dominance and what-ifs. But this much is clear: her body was breaking long before the world saw the cracks. And her decision to walk away, once seen as defeat, now looks more like an act of strength; because sometimes, the toughest move isn’t fighting one more round. It’s knowing when the fight is over.
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