RONDA ROUSEY has sensationally claimed she had a BRAIN INJURY ahead of her famous loss to Holly Holm.
The women’s MMA pioneer’s long reign as bantamweight queen ended nearly nine years ago at UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia.
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Rousey was knocked out cold in the second round of the 135lbs title fight thanks to an iconic head kick and ground and pound from Holm.
Some bookies offered a staggering 22-1 on Holm to get the win in the lead up to the fight. She was around 6-1 with most on the night.
And in an interview with Valeria Lipovetsky, ‘Rowdy’ claimed the loss was the result of her already having a concussion.
The 37-year-old said: “My mouth guard was bad. I literally came into that fight concussed from slipping down some stairs already after all these years of concussions.
“Then I had an absolutely terrible weight cut, which means you have less fluid in your brain to protect it.”
Rousey believes the result of the memorable Melbourne melee may have changed had she not been compromised going into it.
She added: “I was just trying to make it look like I wasn’t hurt, but I wasn’t there cognitively. I couldn’t think as fast.
“I couldn’t judge distance, and just from that one fight, everybody felt like, ‘Oh, she’s a fraud.’”
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Rousey refused to let the image of Holm rendering her unconscious be the final image MMA fans saw of her and returned to the cage 13 months later.
But she’d find herself blown out of the water by future two-division champion Amanda Nunes in a mere 48 seconds.
Rousey, however, insists she has no regrets about how her Hall-of-Fame career ended.
The former WWE star said: “I know that I’m the greatest fighter that has ever lived.
“But when it got to a point where I’d just taken so much neurological damage that I couldn’t take it anymore, suddenly everything that I accomplished meant nothing.
“So then after that second fight, and I saw how all these people that I was coming back to fight for had suddenly turned against me.
“All of my appreciation for them turned into resentment.
“And I just didn’t wanna have anything to do for them and with them anymore.
“I didn’t wanna do anything for them anymore.
“Because I gave them everything that I had, and they hated me for not being able to give them more.”