Mike Straka - Rowdy Rousey: Ronda Rouseys Fight to the Top

This book is dedicated to my daughters, Maxine and Olive; I hope that Ronda Rouseys story inspires you to not only believe in yourselves, but to dream big and love your life. And to Renzo Gracie, for always inspiring me to be better every day, and for allowing your academy to be my second home.

Ronda Rousey confronts Stephanie McMahon during a surprise, explosive appearance at Wrestlemania XXXI, on March 29, 2015 in Santa Clara, California.

Contents

Ronda Rousey gets focused prior to her UFC 157 battle with Liz Carmouche.

Foreword by Chael Sonnen

Ronda Rousey is an inspiring woman who set a goal to achieve in an industry that didnt exist.

She sacrificed everything to perfect a skill, just for the sake of being great. There was no fame, there was no money, there was not even a platform.

Let me remind you, the UFC, until just recently, vowed to never have women in MMA.

The martial arts, throughout the history of time, have largely been folklore. The heroes that you have heard about from Chuck Norris to Bruce Lee are wimps and frauds and charlatans, as it pertains to actually being able to physically dominate an opponent in hand to hand unarmed combat.

You will often hear about a guy who knows secret moves, trains in an undisclosed location, and has learned a skill that was passed down from his great grandfather. Everything youve ever heard about as it pertains to these types of mythical figures, are skills that are actually possessed by Ronda Rousey.

Chael Sonnen flexes during the weigh-in for UFC Night 26 in August 2013.

The most successful people in the world will tell you, Dont do it for the money, follow your passion, and the money will take care of itself. That is truly what happened with Ronda. She had no master plan. She only had a goal and a vision of being the best at what she does.

Present time looks very favorably upon Ronda. She is an icon, a star, and a champion. But like a fine wine she will only get better with time. She paved the way for women everywhere on an international level. People aspire to be like her. Men and women study her films to learn her techniques. But the story of Ronda Rousey should not be one about victories and armbars.

The story should be about a woman with a dream, who persevered at all costs, and changed not only a sport, but a gender forever.

Chael Sonnen

Introduction: Interviewing the Baddest Woman on the Planet

In 2012 Ronda Rousey was preparing to fight Miesha Tate for the Strikeforce world womens bantamweight title on the Showtime premium cable network. I was co-host on Spike TVs MMA Uncensored Live, and was invited to Rouseys training camp to do an interview.

I had already had an interview with Tate in the can, in which Tate made appearances at various Las Vegas fight shops, signing autographs and smiling for pictures with dozens of fans everywhere she went. She was relishing the attention a fight with Rousey was providing, both from fans and media, and she was doing a great job handling it all.

When I arrived with my camera crew at Rouseys gym, to say the future Baddest Woman on the Planet was not happy to see me would be an understatement. While her fight manager and her BJJ trainer both told me everything was good to go, somehow my interview subject was never informed.

To her, it looked like an ambush.

There she was, grappling with men, sweating and bleeding in between bouts of tears, and she was cleaning the mat with them. She was doing an ironman drill, where every minute or so a fresh grappler would jump in. This went on for 30 minutes as my camera crew and I milled about.

With every tap, Rousey would get up and glare at me.

It was unnerving, to say the least. Suddenly, one of the men accidentally kneed Ronda in the crotch. She screamed in pain and tears welled up in her eyes. Im sorry, he said. Ronda went red.

Dont you ever say sorry to me again, she said through sobs. Lets go.

Immediately as the two locked arms, Ronda executed one of the most beautiful Harai Goshis Ive ever seen in my life. A Harai Goshi is a sweeping hip toss, where a judo player sweeps the leg while simultaneously throwing someone down over ones hip. Its quick and looks like the stuff of action movies. Ronda finished the throw with her now-patented armbar, and he tapped.

Rousey holds her championship belt before a weigh-in at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in September 2015.

When she got up, she turned and glared at me. I thought, Im next.

When practice was over Ronda disappeared into the locker room. One of the women from the gym followed her in and quickly went out, got into her car, and drove off.

Great , I thought. We lost her . I feared Rousey was sneaking out the back door and we wouldnt get the interview that I flew out to Los Angeles from New York to obtain. I panicked a little, because I told the executives at Spike TV I had the interview locked down.

There were three cameramen and an audio engineer with me, and those guys werent cheap. In TV, guys get paid even if the show doesnt happen. In spite of my inner turmoil, I kept my cool and assured everyone that the interview would be fine.

Keep setting up, I said calmly, as if this happened all the time. The guys went about setting up their lights and cameras.

Rousey, sporting the patented Ronda Rousey glare, enters the arena for a UFC 170 title fight against Sara McMann on February 22, 2014.

By then I had interviewed nearly every single UFC champion for over a decade. I began covering mixed martial arts when I was the weekend sports guy at Fox News Channel at UFC 32 in June 2001. The winners that night are a whos who of UFC legendssome of which are Hall of Famers today. They were B.J. Penn, Tito Ortiz, Pat Miletich, Josh Barnett, Caol Uno, Vladimir Matyushenko, and Ricco Rodriguez, who beat none other than Andrei Arlovski that night.

From there I hosted Fox Fight Game, Fighting Words on HDNet, TapouT Radio on SiriusXM, MMA Uncensored on Spike, and these days, MMA Noise on LoudernoiseTVa YouTube channel run by music impresario Allen Kovac.

Through those years and shows Ive interviewed hundreds of fighters, but what I saw that night in Rousey was something different, particularly in contrast to her polite and extremely accommodating opponent Miesha Cupcake Tate.

Ronda was raw emotion. She wore her heart on her sleeve. She outright cried. She glared. She clenched her teeth. And shes a spectacular athlete and an even more spectacular fighter. A former U.S. judo world champion and Olympic medalist (the first American woman to ever medal in judo at the Olympics), Rousey is several levels above not only her competition, but many of the men in professional mixed martial arts.