UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey recently spoke to the media in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil following a judo seminar she instructed.
Rousey spoke about subjects ranging from Cris “Cyborg” to Gina Carano to ‘TUF’ 20.
When asked about comments made by UFC President Dana White regarding ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ season 20, saying “You guys are going to be blown away. There’s a Ronda Rousey on this season of The Ultimate Fighter, absolutely,” Rousey had a surprising pick on who that fighter is and had very high praise for her.
I definitely think it’s Rose Namajunas, I called it from the very beginning. Rousey said. As soon as I saw her, I saw this girl is special. I’ve been following her for two years. I only finally got to meet her. I’ve been stalking her on Instagram for years now. It was so great to be able to meet her, and I wish her all the luck. I can’t wait to see how she does in the season. I know that she’s bound to be successful, she’s got an amazing skill set, she’s an exciting fighter, she takes risks and she’s gorgeous and she’s charismatic. I really think that she has all the tools that are needed in order to be the next really influential champion.
Rousey was later asked about fighting Cris “Cybrog” Justino, she didn’t have quite the same kind words on this subject.
I would fight her, but 24 hours after the announcement of out-of-competition drug testing, she asked to be released from the UFC,” Rousey said. “I’m under contract with the UFC, I can’t leave. She can come back whenever she wants, I’m here. She was fighting, it was a while ago, and she just got dropped five times in a match. And really, to be honest, I haven’t been really too impressed with her actual skill set.
It’s only her strength that she draws off. If you remember when she fought Gina (Carano), she pulled her into mount two different times. Those are very grievous technical mistakes. The mistakes that she makes technically are absolutely terrible and basic. The only reason why she gets away with it is because of her strength, and people don’t realize how strong I actually am. Ask the girls that I’ve fought. They weren’t expecting this. Because I don’t look like it, it doesn’t mean I don’t have it.
She doesn’t have any feeling in her punches, she pushes her punches. She can’t knock people out with one punch, she just overwhelms them, my pace, nobody can overwhelm me. And the way that she is on the ground, it’s absolute horrendous. And her distance is absolute horrendous. The only thing that she has is pace and power, and I have pace, precision and power. I think that everybody has something, and I think that she would still be a great competitor at 135, but I think that she knows that it would be much harder for her to get away with doping and to make weight at 135, That’s why she resisted for so long. But then when she saw she had no other options, she started cutting down.
But she’s still outside the organization, going outside the country. I’m sure she’s trying to dope as long as possible and then come into the UFC. But it doesn’t matter. I grew up fighting in judo and I knew there were people out there doping, but I never used that as an excuse to do it. I just wanted to beat them despite of it. ‘You know what, you can have every advantage in the world over me, you can have better funding, you can have a better program, be on all the drugs in the world, but I’m gonna be good enough to beat you despite of it.
The reason why people dope is because they lack self-confidence. The reason why she was using steroids is because that girl does not believe that the best that she has is good enough, and that will always be there in her mind. And you know what, she’s right. The best that she has isn’t good enough, even on drugs.