On Dec. 30, Ronda Rousey will step back into the Octagon for the first time in 13 months when she challenges Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 for the women's bantamweight championship.
In a detailed interview for ESPN The Magazine with Ramona Shelburne, Rousey explained how the first loss of her mixed martial arts career to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November 2015 may have been the best thing that happened to her:
That loss saved me from becoming what I hate. One of those people who live their lives to impress everyone else. Who put up a front for the world to admire. Who make sure every charitable act is posted and shared for their own image gain. Who posture and pose for people they care nothing about except for the opinion they have of them.
Rousey's loss did have a profound impact on her. She explained in a February interview with Ellen DeGeneres (via Paul Chavez of the Daily Mail) that it immediately led to her telling herself "'I’m nothing, what do I do anymore, and no one gives a s--t about me anymore without this.'"
Fast forward to now, Rousey says she wasn't doing all of the things that made her one of the most prolific champions in UFC history for the right reasons:
I was just trying to make too many people happy. But when I try and do favors and make everybody else happy, at the end of the day, they walk away happy and I'm the one who has to deal with the depression. All the pay-per-views in the world, all the money in the world, it means f--king nothing to me because I lost.
Rousey's mother, AnnMaria De Mars, tried to give her daughter a message to move forward: "You need something to fight for."
It doesn't sound like money is the driving force bringing Rousey back to the UFC: "If money is the motivation, then f--k that. All these Money people... Money [Floyd] Mayweather, Money [Conor] McGregor. I see they're trying to do an angle or whatever. People buy it. ... I've had no money before, and it wasn't the end of the world."
Looking ahead to Nunes in two weeks, Rousey has a motivation that is all her own this time around:
I want to be able to walk away with my head held high. It's like a painter looking at what he made and knowing it's not done yet. You could get away with it. You could sell that painting and it would sell. But you'll always know it was never as good as it could have been. I don't want 'Good enough' to be my legacy.
The legacy Rousey is carving out in mixed martial arts may soon come to an end. She said during a November interview with DeGeneres (via Damon Martin of Fox Sports) that UFC 207 is "definitely one of my last fights."
At 29 years old, Rousey certainly has years in her prime left. But her star is also rising in new areas that don't require putting her body through hell to prepare for a fight, then getting hit in the face during a fight. She has appeared in movies and is set to star in a Road House remake.
Rousey cannot get back to the way things were before her loss to Holm, though she also doesn't need to be that fighter again.
It's easy to be happy when you're on top of the world, but the response to adversity is just as important.
Rousey knows the stage is hers on Dec. 30.
