Losing to Holly Holm was much more impactful for Ronda Rousey than anyone imagined.
Rousey said she had suicidal thoughts after being knocked out for the first loss of her UFC career.
“Honestly, my thought, I was like, in the medical room and I was like down in the corner, I was in the corner and I was like ‘what am I any more if I’m not this?’ 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 s*** about me anymore without this,’” Rousey said fighting back tears.
“And to be honest, I looked up and I saw my man Travis (Browne) was standing up there 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 think I only told him that.”
Rousey’s narrative is even more haunting considering she lost her father to suicide when she was 8. She went on to tell Degeneres she fought to find the reason for her shocking defeat.
“I do believe all the best things come from the worst things,” Rousey said, going back to UFC 193 and that devastating kick from Holm. “I’m trying to think of the reason for this and what my actual purpose is. Maybe winning all the time isn’t what’s best for everybody.”
Rousey rebounded nicely from her November defeat snagging a hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live” and the cover of Sports Illustrated’s 2016 swimsuit issue. She said she believes she’s “still undefeated because being defeated is a choice.”
But just to be clear, she still wants to take on Holm who is fighting Miesha Tate in UFC 196 in her highly anticipated return to UFC.
“First I want to fight Holly,” Rousey said. “I want to beat her and make everything right again.”
