UFC champion Ronda Rousey has been honing her combative craft since childhood, growing up as the daughter of an Olympic judoka and carrying on the tradition by winning a medal of her own. She has since sharpened her overall skill-level by adding in stand-up and other submissions she may not have previously practiced, emerging as one of the most dominant female fighters in MMA today.
Given a chance to do it all over again, it sounds like Rousey would still be fighting but would probably have a few more bouts under her belt rather than medals in a trophy case.
“The UFC and MMA stuff is so much more pure compared to all that to me,” Rousey said. “No one is going to change the rules of MMA because they prefer European style over Japanese style. It’s never going to be like that. It will be as close to a real fight as possible and whoever wins, wins.”
“I like that there’s a lot of money involved, that there isn’t going to be people who are selling out for nothing. You can’t predict people like that. There are people [in judo] called sellouts, and stabbing you on the back so they can get on some committee that pays you nothing.”
“The Olympians in our country are pretty much useless. You spend your whole life trying to get this medal and you don’t do it to make money, you do it for your country, for your pride, for your family, and there’s nothing set in place for what happens afterwards. They used to have a program where I’d work at Home Depot 20 hours a week and they’d pay me full-time, that was the only Olympic job program I have. There’s nothing afterwards. There’s no scholarship program, there’s no job placement, after you won an Olympic medal and you’ve spent $100,000, you get 10 grand, which they tax you on. You get 10K for a bronze, 15K for silver, 25K for gold, which you get taxed on, and a handshake. I couldn’t even buy a 2005 used Honda Accord LX with that.”
SOURCE: MMAFighting
PHOTO CREDIT: Strikeforce
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Tom, the whole point was that they DIDNT feed her.
She paid for everything herself, she won a medal for USA and then they left her out to dry.
We are one of the only countries that does not financially support our athletes. Every other country pays the athletes in one way or another. Whether they supply room and board or job placement those athletes are treated as “professional” athletes. If you remember it wasn’t until the late 80′s that our professional athletes were able to compete on the Olympic team through a loop hole. I think that it’s a shame that our athletes have to work full-time jobs in order to afford training and then train. They represent our country and should be taken care of so that they can train full-time and put 110% into their training! Shame on us and kudos to Ronda for speaking her mind!
You’ve got to at least give her credit for speaking her mind.
BURN!!!
Biting the hand that fed her. Interesting.