Ronda Rousey isn’t holding back ahead of her big MMA return against Gina Carano this Saturday. The all-time great former UFC champion, who makes her unexpected comeback on a Netflix card promoted by Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions, has made it clear that she’s back to change the game and prove her doubters wrong.
According to Rousey, her motivational fire turned into a roaring blaze as soon as negotiations began with her previous home in the UFC. Speaking Monday on “The Ariel Helwani Show”, Rousey went scorched earth on UFC CBO Hunter Campbell, who she claims was the primary detractor who led her and Carano to compete elsewhere.
“It wasn’t personal,” Rousey told Uncrowned. “Well, with Hunter, it was personal because he was just a f***ing a**hole about it. He was just being such a chauvinist prick, and he was being so dismissive and trying to get me and Gina to value ourselves less from the get-go, and acting like this wasn’t the greatest thing that has fallen into his lap since he’s f***ing been there.
“He was like, ‘You guys are just so much older. I don’t know how it’s going to do.’ Who the f*** is this guy? I didn’t even know who he was. I was told he’s the ‘lawyer’ that’s going to come and show you your pay-per-view numbers. I was like, ‘Fine. I don’t care. I’m going to knock this out of the park. I love having my pay be performance-based. F*** you, I’ll go show you.’”
Rousey, 39, is set to make her first walk to the cage since retiring from MMA in early 2017 on the heels of back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
For Carano, 44, her absence from competition has been even longer, stretching the gap to 17 years since she battled Cris Cyborg in Strikeforce.
Their bout will take place at 145 pounds, where Carano (7-1) fought her entire career. Rousey (12-2) started her MMA run in the weight class, going undefeated in her first four fights before she moved down to bantamweight for the remainder of her career.
Initially, UFC’s idea for the bout was presented by UFC CEO Dana White as a division-closing featherweight title fight, said Rousey. That would have made it a full-circle moment for Rousey, as Nunes was the last woman to hold UFC featherweight belt, leaving the division to be nixed from the roster after Nunes’ June 2024 retirement.
Once Campbell started interjecting more of his thoughts into the idea, Rousey said she grew much more sour about the direction things were heading.
“Dana mentioned that he wanted me and Gina to fight for the 145-pound title because it was vacant, and it’s a way to retire the belt,” Rousey said. “Then Hunter was like, ‘Yeah, then we can get rid of that division.’ Just the way that he spoke of it, and how dismissive he was — the disdain that he had for the fighters of that weight. I’m like, ‘Motherf***er, my husband [Travis Browne] is 6-foot-7. … This is what you think — women that are heavier at 135 pounds can’t offer you anything? That they’re worthless? That they’re worth scoffing at?’ It just really rubbed me the wrong way that this f***ing guy is the person that’s going to be shepherding the company that I helped build.
“I was actually talking to my mom about it because he was like, ‘Oh, I met your mom. She was so great, tell her I said hi.’ Alright. So, after the meeting, I was like, ‘Mom, do you know who Hunter Campbell is?’ She was like, ‘Yeah, he’s a f***ing a**hole. Screw that guy.’ Why don’t you like him? ‘He’d sell tickets to Christians being fed to lions.'”
Rousey noted how her mother, AnnMaria De Mars, is a part of the California State Athletic Commission, which led to her familiarity with Campbell.
Rousey said Campbell and De Mars met during a meeting to discuss the state’s approval of slap-fighting for White’s Power Slap league. According to De Mars, from Rousey’s recollection, one of Campbell’s arguments in favor of Power Slap was that competitors would otherwise be “doing meth in a trailer park” if it weren’t for slap-fighting.
The story only reinforced Rousey’s feelings after her own experience trying to negotiate the Carano fight.
“That’s what you think of the fighters? We are glorified bum fights to this guy,” Rousey said. “This guy does not have a job because he’s good at it; he has a job because he is Dana and Lorenzo [Fertitta’s] lawyer’s son. He was a f***ing intern when I was there before, and now he’s f***ing coming up to me saying, ‘I don’t know how you and Gina are going to do.’ Like motherf***er, I’m going to put on a bigger fight with Gina than you have your entire f***ing career. Keep trying to fail upwards, motherf***er. Keep trying to suck the right d***s in the right order. I’m f***ing coming for your job.
“You f***ing pissed off the wrong b****. I told Dana, ‘The last thing you want me to do is leave this office with something to prove, because this motherf***er is pissing me off and now I have something to prove. That’s why I’m going to go do some change-the-world s***.’ Dana’s like, ‘I just want you to make as much money as possible. You go do it.’
“Long story long, he’s a d***.”
