Ronda Rousey (Greatest Women's Fighter Ever): The Truth Behind My Fighting, I Kept This A Secret My Entire Career, WWE Is A Mess & Vince McMahon Is Still Running It!

People Don't Know About This I Had To Keep It A Secret Ronda, You Have Voted The Best Female Athlete Of All Time What Was It That Made You? The Person That Sits In Front of Me Today?

So, When I Was A Kid It Was Tough My Dad We Hanted Up Taking His Life When I Was 8 And In School I Got Picked On A Lot I Actually Dropped Out When I Was 16 And Moved Away From Home To Train Full Time But A Lot Of The Coaches Thought That Being Abusive To The Athletes Is What Gave Them The Best Results My First Coach Is Okayed My Job People Don't Know About This But How Get Concussions All Time And Every Time You Get A Concussion It's Easier To Get Another One So By The Time I Got In

I Had To Be All The Finns To Person Off Immediately It Was Those Experiences That Made Me The Bold Champion And You Stacked Up A bunch Of Records Including The Fastest Ever Win Fastest Submission Fastest Title Defense But Then That Lost To A Holy Out Yeah My Whole World Turned Up Side Down I Had To Disappear For A While And You Decide To Move On To The WWE You Don't Have Nice Things To Say About It

Vince McMahon Just Created A Fundamentally Sick Environment And I Think He Still Is Running The Companies To This Day

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When They Did Brain Scans Did They Notice Anything Different In Your Brain At That Point Because Of The Embilical Coincident?

And You Can Do Me A Quick Favor And Hit The Subscribe Button It Helps This Channel More Than You 2 Months Ago 74% And You Can Do Me A Quick Favor And Hit The Subscribe Button It Helps This Channel More Than You 2 Months Ago 74% My Dad passed when I was 8 though and I didn't know but he had broken his back in a studying accident when we'd first moved to North Dakota and he had like a rare blood disorder where he couldn't heal from it.

And so he had been receiving diagnoses basically saying he'd become like a paraplegic and then a quadriplegic and eventually die and we didn't know that he was going through this or dealing with chronic pain or anything like that. So he ended up taking his life when he was, when I was 8 but he didn't going through that for years but had kept it from us.

And so then like my kind of my whole world turned upside down and then my mom ended up re-mearing a couple years later and then when I was around 10, 11 is when we moved to ride the border of Santa Maquan Venice. You father had a sledding accident he he's told that he's going to be a quadriplegic soon. Yes, at some point he broke his back and his disease called Benarritz-Fuller syndrome makes it difficult to clot your blood.

It's like a platelet, you know, your platelets are malformed and so he wasn't able to heal basically and they put a rod in his back to try and help the heal but his spine was just crumbling away so his spine was basically like falling apart. He died by suicide. Yeah, he said he didn't want his last our last memories of him to be laying in a bed with tubes running in and out of him.

He was in a lot of pain all the time but didn't like being you know, doked up on pain killer so he just wanted to go out his own way. Did you have any idea that he was suffering at that time? None at all. Completely kept it from us. So, a woman he's there and then the next minute he's not. Yeah. How did you find out that he died by suicide? My mom told me. Right, you know, right after it happened. How does a mother explain that to an eight-year-old child?

I mean, she's a PhD in educational psychology so very, you know, technically I guess, you know, she just kind of laid the facts out of this is what happened and this is what's going on and we wanted to keep it from you because she said that my dad just wanted us to be kids and not have to worry about it. She told you the details of his suicide. Yeah.

What impact does that have on you? I mean, the long run, I felt like it just kind of gave me this feeling that even if I feel like everything's okay, that everything can come crashing down at any moment. And I guess I had like lost any feeling of security of even when everything is going great. I feel like the ball is about to drop, you know, and that's something that I had to like, you know, work through till this day and I feel like.

Mostly, I can feel pretty secure of my life and where I'm at, but yeah, it plagued me for a long time. You're close to him. Yeah, I was big time daddy's girl. Yeah, but as part of the speech therapy was that my sisters were talking for me and so he had to work a little bit of a drive from the house so he would be in devil's lake during the week and we come home to mind on the weekend. And so the speech therapist that I just spend one on one time with a parent so that I'm forced to speak.

So my sisters can't translate my gibberish for me. And so we would be me and him during the week and we'd come home on the weekend. So it was like, you know, my whole world. It's almost unimaginable for an eight year old to try and process that in reality and like the because I think eight years old you don't understand the concept of suicide or why the you know why a human could die by suicide and at that age.

What is the story you tell yourself in the book you talk you talk about how you would tell yourself that he's going all he's just gone away on business and that he's going to return at some point. Yeah, well, that's the only time that he would really be gone away from the house for extended periods of times because he had like a business trip or something and so that was just kind of like what I told myself to cope for a while.

But then I found out later that my grandfather committed suicide as well. So he was a second generation suicide. Your siblings and your mother the impact of the loss when your dad on them was that noticeable. Did you notice a change in them? I mean, my like sister didn't ever really want to talk about talk about it and I think you know my yeah. Yeah, no one really wanted to talk about it at all. I wasn't like the kind of thing that we would bring up all the time.

Your mother at this time she's a champion in her own right. Yeah, and everything. She got a perfect score on the SATs at 16 graduate college at 19. Then she won the World Championships in Judo the first American dera when the World Championships in Judo while she was working as a single mother engineer and getting her PhD in educational psychology. Wow. Yeah, she's incredible.

When I was reading about her and doing some research on her, she sounds like a little bit of a superwoman. So I went and found. I wanted to see her. I found this picture of her. That's mom. She looks like a badass. She was the original arm bar lady. She actually tore her knees out when she was 17 and had to learn how to win basically just on the ground.

So she was the one that would always win by arm bar. Oh really? Yeah. And she was kind of like taught me how she did it. And you know I added attitude and learn things as well. But it's become like kind of a family heirloom is the arm bar. Yeah. She family on bar. I often think that our childhoods and those sort of early formative experiences and the traumas that we experience they leave fingerprints on us in various ways that follow us for the rest of our lives.

They're good for bad and sometimes for ugly when you think about those sort of first 10 years of your life in the fingerprints that left on you as an adult and the person that sits in front of me today. What are those things that are most sort of ingrained in you from that time of your life? What's most ingrained in me from being a kid?

I think like losing a parent is a huge formative event. Have you ever read a link by Malcolm Gladwell? No, but I've spoken to him on the podcast but no I haven't. Yeah. He mentions that kids that lose a parent before their 10 actually end up being more successful statistically later in life. He's the one that dealt into it into his book. When I was reading I'm like, oh, I could see that makes sense in a way.

The proxies and stuff really pushing me towards sports and being physical and things like that and being the youngest of a sister. I was the one that was getting beat on at the house so it made me tougher and want to constantly be able to prove myself as not just being a little baby but deserving of respect and stuff like that. And those kind of made me into the kind of kid that would my first start swimming.

I wanted to win the Olympics and swimming when I first started judo. I was like, I just don't know when the Olympics in this now. But that was just how encouraged my parents were. You know, if they're like, oh, you want to swim, you're going to win the Olympics in swimming. You know, and so I was just always fed that expectation that I could do everything. And so it's 10 years old you moved to Santa Monica and you had your first attempt and try judo.

Is that right? Yeah. Well, I was swimming here. But I wasn't so much into swimming. It's kind of boring. And I didn't like waking up in the morning and jumping in a cold pool. Yeah, so after a little bit of that, I was like, I want to do something else and my mom. She trained here in the 80s back when she did judo. And so she went to go visit a bunch of her old teammates that had all gone and opened up clubs that are owned and I went and tried it.

And my first day, I didn't even have a hair tie. My hair was all over the place crazy. And I was like trying to figure out how to do judo. And I had the most fun that I ever had because I loved that there was no one way to do it. If it worked, it was right. And it was kind of like mentally intriguing or to figure it out. You're like solving a puzzle. You're having a conversation with the other person, you know.

And so because it was so like mentally engaging, I think that's why I liked it so much. And when I won my first tournament, I got that feeling of winning that I didn't quite get in swimming. I was one of the top kids in the state, but I wouldn't like really win swimming meets. And so first time I won something I got like addicted to that feeling, I guess. So I actually dropped out of school when I was 16 to be able to train and do judo full time and move away from home to train full time.

What was your mother's opinion on you doing judo saying as she was a champion in judo herself, when her daughter turns around and says, my mom, I want to do judo too. I mean, I can't always say how she felt, but I mean, I was kind of like identified as being like a prodigy of judo pretty young. And she wanted to kind of take an outside role of making sure that I was training with all the right people at the right time.

And she wasn't the person that was on like, she of course taught me everything that she could. But she didn't really want to be that overbearing coach mom on the match. You more of like, I was like, you go here to this person, you go here to that person was like the overarching like architect of my career and everything like that. You went to your first tournament and you win the tournament with instant wins, Epons. I don't know what an epon is.

Epon is like if you throw someone flat on her back. Okay. Right. So you win that first tournament. People start considering you to be this child prodigy in judo. What was it about when you look back on yourself now with all the wisdom you have, what was it about you that made you excel above your peers judo? What was it about your character or something that you did?

I mean, there had to be some sort of a genetic factor because like my mom and my dad are both like good athletes. But I think yeah, a part of it was personality wise, but I just really wanted to win that I cared. Why? I mean, winning felt good, but I also, it really hurt for me to lose. I hated like my first tournament at last. I like locked myself in a room for like a week. I was so upset.

But I was willing to get my heart broken. I was willing to care about something so much that my heart be broken if I didn't achieve it. And I don't know. I think I felt like the idea of being better at something than everybody else, like made me special somehow. It was like proof.

And it was also, I wasn't like, I was dragging myself through doing it to be great at something because that's what it was. I really enjoyed like mastering the art of judo, like figuring it out. It was like endlessly intriguing to me at the time. And I remember when I was 16, I like realized, well, was doing Nehwaza, which is fighting on the ground that the end of one move was the beginning of another one.

And that's when I moved from like I'm trying to memorize all these separate techniques to trying to combine them into like a path and like a web. I didn't come up and you know, Nehwaza and judo is not the focus of the sport really. It's been 20% of the time people spent on the ground, maybe less. But it wasn't like Gracie, Jiu Jitsu where they like show you like, oh, this is the way and this is destruction. I was very open-ended.

So I was kind of like, I had to create like my own like system, basically, my own fighting style and everything like that. And that was I think the most interesting to me that I was like creating a philosophy and everything and concepts and how, how do I piece everything together. And so I think that was the most interesting part. I could train for hours and hours and hours and hours and not realize and I'm tired because I'm trying to piece something together.

But I also, I think we call it like opposite ADD where I like fixate on things for like hours on end and I can't get off of it. And but if you tell me to like run, you know, I'm like, oh my God, the whole time I go, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm more tired than I was.

But if you tell me like, if I had to try and figure out how to like do a certain punch or certain right way or do a certain throw the certain right way, I would do it for hours on end trying to get it absolutely perfect and not realize all that time and pass. And sometimes that's like a negative thing or I'll fixate on something like something stupid. I did it like several years ago and not be able to stop myself from thinking about it.

But it's also the same thing that would keep me training on a single technique for hours on end just trying to get it right. And my mom said when I was a kid, I would draw the same picture over and over and over again. I remember I was like a bunny in the middle and there was like a bush and a tree and tree and he sat in like a sun with the cool glasses, right. My mom would be like, why do you keep drawing this picture over and over 1000 sometimes I would draw the same drawing.

And she said my answer was that I'm just trying to get it to match the picture in my head. I couldn't understand why when I thought of a bunny and a bush is not a stuff and I drew it didn't look exactly like a bunny. And so I would keep drawing it over and over and over again to try and get it. And I guess that's like, you know, my personality, I guess it's something that I can't really control for for better or for worse. Is that perfectionism? Is it how you'd kind of define that?

This sort of obsessive pursuit of making the thing perfect as you see it. And so as I say, as a person, as it is mastery, I want to like master and understand something completely. It's kind of like an unfinished puzzle, you know, because I can live in squalor. I don't think like the perfectionism, everything around me is really so so important. But yeah, being able to understand something completely is something that nags me if I don't completely understand it after like keep going back to it.

Jim, you go and train with big Jim at 16 years old. You leave home at 16 years old and go and train with big Jim. Who's big Jim and why did you go and live with him for what for eight months, roughly? God, they're not enough for like years. I was up there. Well, big Jim was one of the best coaches in the country and he trained his son, little Jimmy, who had just won the 1999 World Championship in Judo.

And I know Judo is not that big in the US. So the places that are good at it and have good coaches and good people to train with our few and far between. And Pedro's Judo was one of those places. Yeah, leaving home at 16 is unusual to say the least. Yeah. What impact did that have on you? It was tough. It was hard. I remember being homesick a lot. I was really isolating. You know, all I did was train all day. There wasn't any other kids. My age. I was always around people older than me.

You know, part of being like a sport prodigy is no one your age is on your level. You know, so I was always training with people older. I also at the same time felt like I was in the middle of my montage to do something like amazing. You know, I thought I was going to shock the world and be the first American to win the gold medal in Judo at 17. And so, you know, it was worth it to me. And at this time, you're 16. You're. You have your first experience with what we call Belemia.

You talk about this in the book where because of the pressure for you to make way almost every week. You struggled with Belemia for the first time. Can you what do I need to understand about that? Because I don't understand what Belemia is in my in full of full entirety. But I also don't understand the circumstances that would lead a 16 year old to make decisions to. That would be categorized as Belemic.

Well, basically, I had to be a weight on a deadline very often. And it's not really a weight that I could healthily stay at. And so I would have to cut weight to get there. And I just started to give me like a really unhealthy relationship with food where I would like hoard food while I was cutting weight. I can't be bars and stuff like that. And then after I made weight, I would like gorge myself on it. I didn't know anything. I didn't have any resources to help me out with it.

And so I just kind of spiraled into disorder. And that just what it would mean throwing up your food off due to eating on occasion. Yeah, remember the first time I did it was I had like a childhood coach or something took me out one day. And he like basically like forced me to have a chocolate shake. And he was like, no, you got to have a chocolate shake. Come on. It's fine. You train all the time. You have a chocolate shake.

And I felt like so guilty about the chocolate shake that I and I had to be like, make weight or something like that weekend or something. And I was there's no way I would be able to make it. And so like I made myself throw up the chocolate shake. And it was actually like it was it was cold. It didn't hurt. It was that bad. You know, I was like, oh, well, that wasn't even that terrible.

And so I thought it was like one time thing. But the next time I like ate too much and I felt like really guilty about it. It just became like, you know, the panic button of if I ate too much and I had a dead like coming up where I had to be a certain way. And I was like, it was the only thing I could do. And I was a little girl that was growing, you know, I like grew four inches and like doubled my weight in a short period of time.

And so I just couldn't stay at a lower weight. So, but you have all this outside pressure to be able to maintain the same way even though it is an athlete you're growing and putting on muscle and even getting taller. So it was kind of like fighting nature. I read in your book that they called you miss man. Yeah. And in school, it wasn't cool for, you know, little girls to be muscular back then. And so before I dropped out at 16, you know, I was really muscular.

And people would like grab at my arms and make fun of me all the time to the point that I would just kind of like, God, where is sip of putty all the time, no matter how hot it was. I always tried to like cover up my arms how muscular it was, which is one reason why when I got older that trying to like fight that's that idea that being muscular was masculine was something that became important to me because that, you know,

if you were teenage girl in the early 2000s, it was a pretty unhealthy standard that was presented to us. So, yeah, I didn't fit the the very narrow scope of what was considered attractive at that time. And now it's like considered like really cool for, you know, women should have muscles now all the models have like stomach definition and stuff like that and like doing boxing and all this stuff and want to look tone to that.

That wasn't the case back and that wasn't the case back then. That was something that I got used for a lot. But 18 you leave home and you go off to, you leave him as you say because you felt like you wanted to have some control over your life. And I think you're on route to the Olympics at this point you were thinking about going to the Olympics at 21 years old, you actually competed in the Beijing Olympics and you were the first American woman to get an Olympic medal.

And then what I found really shocking is that you made $6,000 from from winning that medal at the Olympics. Yeah, after I got taxed on it, $10,000 and I taxed on it actually pitched about it so much in the media when I was doing them and made that they got rid of that tax, but they still you don't get $10,000.

Is there like a bit of a through line in your story that starts very young about this idea of the importance of validation and respect from other people, this kind of bit of a chip on your shoulder that was driving you. Yeah, I think it started out as something that drove me and then it ended up being something that held me back that I had to kind of shake myself from.

But you know, I also benefited greatly from it. So I'm not saying I forget anything, but I know that it wasn't like a sustainable model for me to, you know, be happy and along run.

Because I spoke to Tim Grover who trained LeBron and Kobe and he said the same thing to me said, you know, we're talking about Kobe and all those years training him to be a champion that are dark side and our light side are interconnected when he's talking about our dark side, he's basically saying like the trauma that the difficult things about us, the things that we would probably

keep in the shadow if we could. They end up creating the greatness that we see on our screens. And it's like you can't separate out the two you can't just have this person and not this person. Unfortunately, but like he makes the case to me that we all have a dark side and unfortunately it's as I say it's responsible for our lights.

And I see that throughout your story, this sort of journey to understanding that part of you. And as you say in your book, like liberating yourself from it, which is really interesting because I feel like I've been trying to do the same thing in my life. I've been trying to take back the control of some of it, because as you said there can lead you to the top of the mountain. And then it can sometimes bring you down the other side or it can make you miserable at the top of the mountain.

I think I had to get to the top of several mountains to realize that like the mountain climbing wasn't really going to be what made me happy. And I had this idea that if I like if I collected or hordered achievements at somehow while someday they would all add up to happiness that I would be able to like I did this thing.

So now I could be happy forever. My idea was if I'm like the first American to win the Olympics in judo, then I will be happy for the rest of my life. And it's not it didn't really work like that. Like I could achieve these great things and they would make me happy for a time, but your life goes on past that.

And so I kind of had to figure out after hoarding all these bucket list experiences that I would actually end up just forgetting at times like someone had to remind me the other day remember when you flew with Thunderbirds I'm like, yeah.

And then they didn't equate to the actual happiness and I had to I thought that if I like could make my past into something that I I done all these great things that they would it would dictate my future, but I had to kind of figure out that like making myself happy with every day that I'm winning that that I'm living individually is what I needed to do.

And there's no amount of accomplishments that you can like add to you know your trophy shelf that are going to equate to being happy forever in the future just this impossible.

It sounds like you were living with a bit of a secret throughout your sort of early MMA career and the fact that you had what appeared to be a bit of a concussion based brain injury of sorts because in your book you talk about how you realize that in inspiring if someone hit you pretty hard in the head you end up seeing stars.

Yeah, I mean, I people didn't really know about CTE back when I was doing judo and how get concussions all the time and just be told that you know I had heard so I have photo vision I would say it like stuff like that and they'd be like just stopping a pussy and like keep trading and so.

I would get you know dozens dozens of concussions and never be allowed to stop and I would have to keep trading through them and the systems would persist for weeks so the point that I was experiencing concussion symptoms more often than I wasn't for a 10 year judo career.

I mean that's the kind of thing that like you know leads to CTE all these football players that we're dealing with were having concussions repeatedly and not being allowed to rest and so by the time I got into MMA like this is the kind of injury that accumulates over time you don't you know it doesn't go away every time you get a concussion it's easier to get another one.

And so by the time I got into MMA I it was really easy for me to get concussion symptoms and I'd I'd rested for a couple years you know so I first it wasn't so bad but it just got worse and worse and worse with time even if I'm winning a fight and you know 14 seconds and the other person doesn't touch me there's 50 rounds of sparring that went into that training camp and you're wearing like a head gear and gloves which are.

And gloves which are meant to protect you cosmetically but these gloves are 14 ounces and you're wearing this head gear so your brain is you know suspended in fluid the larger the thing is like it's 14 ounces it's easier actually to give you a concussion when you're sparring and it's the kind of thing that I didn't want to like say anything about you know I didn't want I didn't want to address it myself or any kind of weakness in myself and I just kept telling myself that I you know I just have to be perfect and not allow these people to touch me at the car.

I'm just being honest people that touch me at the carat this fighting style that's so efficient. That I don't take any damage and got to a point where I fought Sarah McMahon and she barely tapped me and I obviously had a concussion afterward I couldn't bear to look at the lights I had to have everyone turn the lights off and I was looking for a way out you know cos I know I couldn't sustain that forever

yeah it's got it got the point or if I got like tapped at all with the you know instead of the point so stepping McMahon slapped me and gave me a concussion you know and the you know a woman and that has never been a fighter in her life and even you know it's past her slapping prime she can slap me across the face and give me a concussion you know I shouldn't be fighting anymore.

This is secret I had to keep it secret from everybody my coaches Dana even like myself I just didn't want to face face up to it I just thought that I could keep it going forever and so that like I think was the most frustrating thing to me like in my first loss I got tapped in the beginning and I'd fallen down the stairs a week or so like maybe a week or so before that knock myself out falling down the stairs at my house and then didn't say anything went to the fight anyway had a

way could have the wrong mouth guard with which didn't have the protection of the back of the bottom teeth so the first time she taps me my teeth get knocked loose and I'm out on my feet like when I say out on my feet and means that like

I have no I have no death perception perception basically and I'm at a very limited capacity of what my brain can the information that it could give me and so I knew that if she knew that I was hurt I wouldn't be able to defend myself and so I had to keep coming forward without

knowing how far away she was and not being fully you know hold of my facilities just to keep the fight going hoping that I would recover but I just couldn't and so I think that that's one of the things that really dug like dug at me for so long that so many people were like saying like oh Ron his

game plan was bad or whatever this and like they didn't know that like I wasn't like present I was like just trying to survive I couldn't see how far away she was I it wasn't like that was my game plan or anything like that I was like completely disabled and

when I tried to fight again and I was like okay I'll give myself a break and I'll make sure the mouth coach perfected this time I'm not going to knock myself out right before the fight and all those things and the same thing I just got tapped and I was I was out you know even if I was out on my feet I was out

so I just like just didn't have the hardware to continue fighting a lot of people will say like oh you're fucking quitter you're this or that on and it's really difficult because I never had been more skilled as a fighter I'd never been better in my life but I just you know I just neurologically wasn't capable of continuing it to fight at that level and I couldn't say anything about it then because I wanted to go do pro wrestling and they already have their own

controversy they they had to deal with with wrestlers having you know CTE and all kinds of damage from concussions and so such a volatile subject that I just I couldn't say anything about it and I couldn't say anything about it leading into my my my last fight because then I'd be basically telling the other person that you know

that putting a target on my head literally so I just had to stay silent about it for years and let people make their their own assumptions about me and you know it was tough because like in some ways like I've never been better as a fighter I've never had a better grasp of everything that I ever had I'd never been faster stronger everything else but you know you only have so many hits he can take it unfortunately I took the vast majority of them as a kid doing judo

I want to make sure I completely understand the context of the what it's like to get a concussion and to live with a concussion that ends up compounding to make it even more sensitive you use you take those big hits when you're younger they they ask you to fight through the concussion by the time you're in the UFC you've developed this incredible style where you basically get people out of their

instantly I mean in the leading up to your fight with a man to homes I think I remember commentator saying at the time that you knocked or you'd submitted everyone within 30 seconds of the fight starting so your style had kind of adapted to become I'm going to get this person out of there immediately that was an accident that was the goal that was the goal the goal was I had to be able to finish the person off immediately because that was the only way that I could fight is to not take any damage

because if they hit you in the head at that point there was a risk that you you would get a concussion and you were aware of that risk but your coaches want to know what any of your coaches are aware of it no was Edmund to wear it you're struggling I didn't tell anybody I didn't it was one of those things I just didn't want to like face up to that to having any weakness in myself and also like

I don't want to stop I didn't want anyone to be making that decision for me I didn't want to tell the company that I was having your logical symptoms and they went let me continue to fight I didn't want those decisions to be taken out of my hands

in your book you talk about the relationship you had with Edmund and it wasn't always great in terms of his approach to coaching you talk about how he would physically strike you during training but more potentially even more severely he would emotionally abuse you during training I mean honestly I can't think of single coach that I had like a great like a great relationship with like this is like

a lot of the coaches were of that like Bellacruly kind of generation of like they thought that being abusive to the athletes is what gave them the best results and that was kind of what was like invoked at the time so

and like that as an athlete you're just kind of like all right well this is what I have to deal with in order to be the best and especially with like these these sports where you have no other choice like this is the national team coach and you have to get their approval and put other there's a shit to be able to fight at this level and so like Edmund was not as bad as previous coaches so that's why I put up with a lot because I felt like I at least had to say that I could

talk back to the other coaches would just you know like little Jimmy my first coach literally like just located my jaw is I was a little kid I threw him once in front everybody and and laugh because I thought I was awesome and he threw me on the benches on top of table at everybody else

being in front of all these people and you know big Jim had like grabbed me by the throat before to like drive his point home that women can't defend themselves and so this is like behavior that I've been conditioned to tolerate since I was like a little girl and Edmund was of that same like Eastern European kind of like school of thought of like you have to be like really tough and in order to bring the best out of people and

what does that do to your emotions though because we develop you know at the age when most of us are developing our emotions you're having your suppressed and you're being made into this really quote unquote tough person.

I think it kind of taught me from a young age to just like how did it diffuse like coaches that were like getting out of hand and not because if I stood up for myself it would just make it worse and so it just kind of like taught me to like okay I got to like get this person to good mood all the time like butter them up or after like strategically find my way to like out of being berated or something like that and so I think it's not so much

one individual that's a huge problem I think the whole system is the problem and that it really reinforces these like in power and balances that are never really taken advantage of that all these coaches have free reign of their little their little fiefdoms and

the lot of athletes don't have any other option and so like I don't see how like in school you can have like a teacher someone comes in to watch the teacher teach to grade them on their teaching like nobody does this for coaching and you know so I would hear these stories about like these

two more coaches that like would kill their athletes training them and I'd be like yeah you know I could see how that could happen and it's just it's it's not one person it's not one sport it's everywhere and there's like I can't say that I have all the answers for it but I can say that like coaching in general creates a really like unhealthy power like in the sense that what I was able how I was able to take my relationship with my coach Edmund and take it from off the rails back on track is

to have very distinct boundaries you know a lot of times your coaches someone that you're you know is tough on you but they're also like they care about you and they're a brother they're they're coached to by a lot of times it it becomes like an overbearing family member and a coach and you can't be both that's why my mom didn't want to be my coach

she didn't want to have to be my mom and my coach because being both of those at the same time is inevitably unhealthy and when we put boundaries in place of like okay this is what your job is and you do not do anything outside of that then you know I training was better than ever a relationship was better than ever but I think like a lot of these lines and these boundaries good blurred and they need to be very you know very defined in order for for it to work out.

And how were those lines blurred with your coach just just is he was crossing them in terms of the things he was able to say and do yeah I mean a lot of it was like he just wanted to know where I was all the time and like I needed to be constantly available and and stuff like that and we're also would like end up turning into like a big argument or something like that

and I would just end up just trying to like do anything I could to not get an argument and but yeah like I had to like make a rule at one point I was like you're not allowed to FaceTime me because I don't want you to just FaceTime me and know where I am at all times what I'm doing because like it's my fucking business is my privacy and it was just he was always trying to push that boundary

that was always pushing back and stuff like that and but I was like I don't know I I saw a times I was like I'm like I just want to train like I don't I would be just to try and like play Kate him because if I like just stop talking to him in an argument then it would end up leaking into training the next day and so it just became like really like taxing of my my my energy in general but like I mean I can't really think of a single like coach relationship that I that

I had that was like perfect but it worked you know that's the one problem that I always had like debating on like while it's working I'm getting better and so you would just put up with it because there's there was no perfect option out there you said at the restart that you were very very close to your father and then when your father passed these other men that almost take on

what someone could like into a fatherly role or all coaches yeah yeah no I mean they were all like what was in in kill bill they was talking about a dead bill losses father early so he collected father figures yeah I collected them none of them was goes the original but yeah I think that that constant need for you know validation from a father figure was something that I was constantly like pursuing but you know that like that philosophy of coaching of you know you see like the like the Russian

figure skaters the gymnast and never smile because they've been like beaten into iron but that was basically the philosophy of all the coaches that I had they would see someone like Belok Roli and be like oh my god like he was their idol and so they're all trying to like and you like that beat in the emotion out of you this is something that I that I've always wondered about you because you you've always had a steely exterior you know you have especially

way in the fight in the UFC days I watch some of you your clips to remind myself of your fighting days before this and you know that you came in with that face that are that face and just an interviews around that time and so on and this is why I was the question about emotion and how as because you got into this at such a young age and you're dealing with these men who call you you know you're lacking discipline if you miss weight and all

of these kinds of things you go through that the loss of your father the unprocessed grief I'm wondering what happens to Ronda Rousey's relationship with her own emotions I mean I was always really emotional actually as a fighter I would cry all the mat all the time all the time I cried on the mat like every practice for years straight now you yelled at for crying get yelled at for crying I yelled at for crying so I cried and then I would cry because I was crying and I would cry because I was

being yelled at for crying and yeah I just but it wouldn't be because something hurt because you know something I was frustrated by something I couldn't I got thrown or I couldn't make something works I was trying to make work and I would cry out of frustration

and my mom said I had a turn it where it was full double elimination so I ended up winning the tournament by lost a match earlier in the day and every single match I would come up crying bowin throw the other girl and ask beater bow out crying come into the next match still crying beat the show the other girl bow out crying the whole day crying until I beat everybody beat the same girl that beat me twice in order to win on top of the podium number one crying still because I lost that first

match earlier in the day and so yeah I was always very emotional I was extremely emotional as a fighter and in training and everything like that and that was something I was constantly trying to like battle was like if you get thrown in a tournament don't start crying because that was just something that would happen to be all the time very yeah and that is so funny if you will think that I'm like yeah this emotionalist robot whatever I fight I took a long

time to be able to get there to stop like crying in the middle of the match wow yeah Dana says he's never going to allow women into the UFC to fight but then Dana changes his mind and he changes his mind because of you effectively so in September 2012 I remember the I remember it very fondly remember where I was when I watched the first woman fight in the UFC Dana says that he's signing the first ever woman fighter in the UFC

they be called Ronda Rousey and despite saying a year earlier that he wouldn't but he called you a game changer and so you didn't end up changing the game and you became UFC champion between 2020 2012 and 2015 you won 15 fights back to back most of them finished within seconds you stacked up a bunch of records including the fastest ever win fastest submission fastest title defense turnaround and you have voted the best female athlete of all

time in a 2015 ESPN fan pole and Fox Sports called you one of the defining athletes of the 21st century part of that sort of 15 fights back to back was you know when I think about that period is the amount of times you were fighting was really unusual you're fighting I think sometimes you're fighting three times in nine months which is kind of an heard of for anyone in the UFC I mean this fight is today that seems to just fight once a year

why are you doing that why are you fighting so frequently I was fighting that frequently because that's how often Dana calls and I told them that no if you sign me I will be there to fight whenever you need me and I never said no and so anytime that I got an offer any time the guys got hurt or fell out I was always the one that fill in and I mean I was like I always fought on like a bed like February's and August and November's like the worst times of the years to fight

because that's when they needed somebody to come in and pick up the numbers so I wasn't somebody like holding out to only fight on the fourth of July card or New Year's card which are the best you know you're the highest viewed of the year I

would do whatever was best for the company because that's what I promised the role that I would fulfill that was like the deal that I made when I came in and you know nobody else has to do that but I felt like I I owed it to Dana I I promised them I would be there

anytime that I needed me and I was if you could go back and give yourself advice on that day when you signed your UFC contract now you could time travel back to that runder and give her a little bit of advice whisper and I what would you say I wouldn't change anything

I'm not possible and I let myself to where I am now and I'm happy with where I'm at so I wouldn't fuck with it when you got the news that you're going to be signing for the UFC as a first ever woman to fight in the UFC how did how did that feel validating

yeah I was just really excited I just felt like I was it on a secret with the whole world and I didn't know and they were just starting to find out and throughout that period while you're the UFC champion you take up acting and you feature in a couple of films like the fast and furious expendables etc was that something that you always had planned or is that something that just a rose as an opportunity

uh the movie stuff just kind of a rose as an opportunity um but you know once it became a possibility I was like of course I could be the next Bruce Lee you know of course I could do great at this and I felt like I was a good like performer and you know great physical performer as well

and I could combine the two in a way that nobody else could so I went after it with the same kind of confidence I went after everything on the 14th of November 2015 you had UFC one nine three where you aligned up to fight Holy Homes in Melbourne Australia

I remember where I was when that fight happened I didn't miss many UFC fights and I still don't miss many but it was a really sort of a huge turning point for a number of reasons you were indestructible basically that's how the whole UFC community and I think the fan base saw you but in that moment as you said early on there was an initial contact and I watched the clip again early run there's an initial contact I think it was with Holy Homes elbow if I can't remember if I remember correctly

and then you talked about having this sort of issue with depth depth perception because of that initial contact and that's actually what I see in that clip I see from that first sort of strike that there is an issue with kind of understanding where where Holy is and that fight ends in a head kick from that moment when you leave the the octagon how does how does your life and perception of everything change because it's interesting the way that you were built up to that you were at the top of the

mountain you're up in the clouds at that point like it was it was framed to everyone that you are fundamentally indestructible you know and that's kind of what the marketing machine does it does to everyone they're fundamentally indestructible but everyone

with from the hamadah lead to my friend israel in the UFC everyone has their day where we find out that everyone is a human being to some degree from the moment you leave the UFC what is life like from that point onwards when you get back into the medical room extremely depressing you know that was my whole identity it was being champion and undefeated and it was just like soul crushing really was it was I was just kind of like forced to face music before I was ready to and I knew that

it was going to catch up to me at some point but I was more think upset that there were so many people out there that were like reveling in it and I don't know it just felt so like unjust in a way because I just felt like it was just there's so much of it just wasn't my fault

you know I guess couldn't like my brain just couldn't take what I asked of it anymore and my body took as much as it could until it literally broke and I gave everybody everything that I had and that wasn't enough for them they they hated me for not having more

so I mean it was tough it was my soul a whole bunch of people that I thought were friends just you know turn on me and it was really eye opening in a way though to who true who a true to who true friends are and what is what true happiness is in that outward validation wasn't it and so I think maybe you might have saved me in a way from going down the path of trying to like chase that high of everybody's you know a proof of forever but so I guess it was liberating in a way in the long run

if I was a flown the wall that night when you left that up to go what would I have seen a lot of crying so I had to get my lip sewed up the muscle underneath and then the skin I remember I was so out of it that I like bid off a chunk of my lips bid it out like it was like a piece of chap

like you know like a chap lip like that's how out of it I was I was biting into it like spitting out chunks of like fleshed my lip and people judging me for the decisions I was making all well in that state I think is what bothered me the most

it wasn't so much that I lost the persist that people thought that I didn't know how to fight and you know if I was at my full capacity I don't think anyone could ever beat me but I just you know I was spit I was running on fumes for so long that I didn't have any fumes left and

in the moment that I ran out of fumes was you know broadcast live to billions of people everywhere who all had their own assumptions about it none of them are right and I felt like I couldn't speak up or say anything and honestly like whoever I tried to talk to

they didn't care about helping me communicate when I was trying to communicate they just cared about getting as many clicks as possible so I couldn't trust anyone to speak through so I feel like this book was the only way that I could really communicate

and I felt like everything that had been holding on to for years because I mean yeah it was really tough but I literally fought until I couldn't fight anymore and maybe there's not enough for a lot of people but I feel like I created the most efficient fighting style that ever created

that was that's ever existed and I had to realize that only people that are truly great can recognize greatness and I wanted to be so great that even an idiot couldn't deny it but then I realized after going into pro wrestling that retiring undefeded and taking the equity that I had with me wouldn't have been what was best for the sport even though I know that I'm better than all these girls and by a fucking long shot and I always will be

taking my equity away from me so that everybody knows that when would actually tarnish my legacy it wouldn't make everybody take the work the women after me seriously and so it had to happen for the betterment of the sport but sometimes it still stings a little bit that it's you know I'm not recognized as the greatest ever what I know I am but my mom said all the time really quite the other picture that she didn't care if everybody knew she was the best in the world

she only cared if she knew she didn't care if that nobody knew who was the first American rolled champion of judo back in 1984 it was important to her and I think like somewhere along the way I my it started to matter more what other people thought than what I thought and so I think being being forced back to to that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me

I don't think people realize the extent of they see it as kind of just a game in it's fighting they see it as some kind of game that they're watching like they're playing an Xbox or PlayStation but I don't think they understand the extent of the devastation on a human level that you kind of experience after that loss until you did that interview with Ellen where you revealed that you'd gone back to your changing room and you had these sort of suicide ideation about the future

most people didn't realize the extent of it until then it would did you literally have suicide ideation in the days and hours following the fight that was basically like instantly when I came backstage but you know suicide is the kind of thing that becomes more prevalent if you know it's in your family

and I'm literally had two generations of suicide ahead of me it's just something that it's always like an option in your mind once it's shown to you but I think that the fact that I was with Travis and my husband now that I just didn't want to like take the pain that I had in me and give it to him because that's what how I experienced suicide was like okay it's you get to relieve yourself of that pain but you have to pass it on to everybody else

and my you know but my dad was dying anyway he wouldn't have been able to prevent his death and he was you know physically suffering every day and so that so I understand that and I didn't feel like I had that the same kind of justification that I wasn't going to die anyway so I was going to live for him and for my family so that they wouldn't have to

take the pain that I was feeling under them was that the hardest moment in your professional career professionally yeah was it the hardest moment in your personal life not losing my dad was worse you went on to fight Amanda Nina as a UFC 207 in 2016 and the fight ends again and after this you come to the decision that your time at the year of C is over and you decide to move on to the WWE there's this sort of a two year gap I believe between about one year gap between the new

nurse fight and the WWE announcement what happens in your life in that gap I was mostly just being sad I was just like sad and high and playing video games and eating the grapes I mean everybody wants to rush you through grieving things but you know I think it's important and so I took that time to myself I was also just so worn out from you know I said

running on fumes for years on end and like literally dragging myself out of bed every morning and like having to dig deep every second of the day that I just you know wanted to dig deep and just disappear I had you know pop rots in all kinds of crazy shit happening at the time and I just

just like didn't want to be famous anymore so it was always more of a tool than a goal and now that I didn't have fights to promote I didn't have a lot of time but I guess it was done with me so I kind of had to like disappear for a while to be left alone we doing

anything professionally during that period we just I mean I know I just at home I feel like I just needed to not give me more I don't think anyone can understand how exhausted I was and how much it asked of me for so long that I just needed to rest mentally and physically rest and but people that have you know dug deep enough to make it to two Olympics and win 15 fights in a row you know not a people not a lot of people understand how much effort that takes and just sounds like numbers when you

say it but when you live it it's just like I literally had nothing left in me I like could barely get out of bed so I mean it's not the kind of like tired that you can take a long sleep from and wake up refreshed you know like I was like the kind of tired that takes like a year to recover from is that is not depression in your mind so you can you can call it depression but you know I didn't see anyone and get diagnosed. Your husband was there throughout that period with you?

Yeah he was there the whole time he was the one supplying the craps.

Yeah he's amazing he really was you know help drag me out of my own hole and I'm very much like you know like a lot of people call him cave creature in general like I just like not not leave my my little 10 but he's like very much a social butterfly and he would make sure that like okay you need to go out and interact with human being which you know is always kind of been how I was I always struggled socially and stuff like that which is why I got

out of the window was to be able to like socialize and just be able to talk and communicate and so I just kind of refer to back to like my my hermit and see is then yeah travel literally I had to like drag me out of my hole and I'm glad you did but yeah I would easily slide back into the misty mountains anytime I was allowed. Did he understand what you were going through psychologically in that period were you able to

communicate to Tim. I think he understood to an extent like he he had a different kind of incredible story where he started fighting at 26 and then was number one contender and at the UFC and as much time as it took me to be a number one to enter the UFC so he was like incredibly naturally talented but he hadn't been you know pursuing a goal of athletic greatness and he was six the way that I had and so I'm just a disappointment of you know never going never winning an Olympic gold

medal and never being able to retire and defeated and those kind of like lifelong goals. I don't think a lot of people understand that but he also is still like so supportive in there for me you know and he never got fed up with me him open around and literally crying over like eggs if I like they

don't broke the yoke and be like I can't eat it. You know it's like just being like that for like yeah over a year and stuff and his like he's just such incredible love and patience and was just like there for me all the time and just like bringing me in and holding me when I needed it even if he didn't like understand why I was so sad he was like there for it anyway so yeah he's the

best thing that ever happened to me. I love him so much but yeah he might not have understood it so much but he was still there for me. Now you're going to get me at some point. I'm emotional. No I know.

It's often in those moments our hardest moments that we realize that you said earlier who we've got around us but also the value of certain people in our lives I think in my hardest times in my life that's following those times is when I realized who really really mattered and my partner in particular through my hardest moments I've you go through the the dark canyon of these tough times in life and

you emerge that person walked through it with you and you go fucking hell this person now I understand how much they mean to me sometimes it takes that to understand what someone means to you and it certainly sounds like that moment crystallized what Travis means to you in your life as well.

Yeah I think when we first got together we went through so much stuff that would have driven anybody else apart but it really just brought us all brought us brought the two of us closer together and I'm so glad that we were with each other when we were going through the hardest times that we didn't have to go through it alone.

Where does the WWE come in? So that's ultimately what sort of I guess pulled you out if you're a little cave there but yeah I had to get out of the cave in front of like a crowd of thousands of people live of course which is really funny because I really don't like it. I don't like being in front of crowds that a bunch of people and I hate public speaking. But I just love the stuff that I get to do while doing it you know.

But yeah I kind of my friends the four horse of in Shana Jasmine and Marina that were like a friends I made I mean I knew Marina back from judo and I met Shana and Jasmine through MMA and we really became like really close in a group and you know for me and for how hard it was for me to like socialize with my friends like these were like girls you know. And they all started getting into pro wrestling and I just started doing it for fun and it was just so fun.

And like it wasn't a competition it was everyone working together to try and do something great together. And so it reminded me more of like you know like filming action movies and doing fight choreography except for it was kind of like in its purist form where you have to tell the story like the movie you have like the movie part and then there's a fight and then the story and like usually the fight is like separate from that.

And I feel like pro wrestling is like the purest form of combat storytelling because you can only tell the story through the combat. Now I was just fasting with that especially you know want to be Bruce Lee. And they became that thing that like I started to fixate on and wanted to be better and better at it. And just would go into training and lose track of time and realize that I had been going for five hours kind of a thing. And I love that feeling of being lost and something.

To my friend I was talking to somebody other day I was like passion is my passion. I just love to do passionate about things and you know I guess that the flow state is fun. And I just love being in it. So yeah then I started just training for fun and then then and you know getting I didn't really get an opportunity to go to WW. I was kind of like hey guys I want to do this. And then they were like okay.

And yeah then just kind of snowballed into because the first I was like okay I want to have a baby soon. And it'd be kind of cool to go do some pro wrestling for a couple months before I go and have my baby. And then it just kind of like snowballed into this whole beast and this whole like other life that I didn't know that I was going to have. But it was very much like like a calling much more than a pursuit if that made sense you know.

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One of the things that surprised me and again it's because if we only get to see this with 2D representation of someone on a screen whether that you know, through wrestling career or UFC career which is kind of like it's kind of like all of it's kind of like acting the press conferences the bravado is in your book you talk about how comments online and news paper comments and stuff would get to you. I mean you know it starts off like that.

But yeah, at first you know when everything is going great it was like I would look at my comments like the morning newspaper I wake up in the morning and look at my comments I'll look at my tag photos. And so unhealthy.

But after my first loss like quit cold turkey which I feel like that was one thing that I needed to do was to like not constantly need to that outside validation and stuff like that especially from Internet and social media and stuff and I was kind of like spiraling in a way and in kind of like giving that way too much stock in my emotional you know state and stuff like that and and then pro wrestling you're literally in front of a crowd that is like the embodiment of a comment section.

But you know that's also why I really enjoyed being a heel which I you know wish they would have let me be a heal more often because that's why I feel like I was happy and at happiest when I wasn't trying to placate to the crowd purposely trying you know to miss them off and get a rise out of them and not trying to constantly you know, panor.

I was surprised to hear about the WWE that they kind of rewrite the script last minute and that it's not I don't you think of such a big business you imagine they got script writers and the scripts are written.

And absolutely flushed to show and you would be wrong. Yeah, yeah, it was and it's so needlessly dangerous like no one can like a lot of times people can't rehearse things are changed last minute a lot of times you see them outside they're performing they've only talked about it and they're doing it for the first time so a lot of these injuries happen because people just weren't able to rehearse and the company isn't give a shit because we're all expendable of them.

So did you feel expendable to the FC to the WWE? Yes, yeah, I think you outweigh all did and they made sure to make us feel that way. Why would they made sure to make you feel that way? Yeah. So that you wouldn't get above your station or something so that you would do whatever you're told. Yeah, just do whatever you told to stake it.

And you're all contractors at the WWE as well. So you're not employees you have to pay for your own health care and all these kinds of things from my reading your book. Yep, which is pretty crazy. I mean, there would never be a lot in a where I'm from in the UK. And it's sort of Vince McMahon's kingdom. Yeah.

Well, I mean, supposedly he's out now because they, you know, caught up and paying company, company funds so you can show some girls head in the office and, you know, do a three somewhere there with Johnny Lauren, I just. But his cronies are still there. And so when the stuff started coming out and Vince was gone before he was still basically just calling it in and running the company.

And, but yeah, like Bruce Pritchard, who's there now is still like the head of creative or whatever title they gave him is basically just taking orders from Vince and still running the company through him. So when Vince was resigned formally because of all these like sexual allegations and stuff that were coming out, he was still running the company informally. And I think he still is to this day. You don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about these people.

I mean, depends on who the girls in locker room. I absolutely love them. People at the top running. Yeah. I mean, Stefan Triple H. I think they're honestly doing their best. But I mean, I think that Vince McMahon just created a fundamentally sick environment. And I think if if Ari is going to be able to be able to, if Ari a manual who bought it out from WME is going to be able to actually make this multi billion dollar dysfunctional organization into one that functions.

And I think that's got to clean out all the vences. Cronies is got a completely clean house and remove vences influence completely. But, you know, no one's asking me. But that's just what I experienced when Vince was gone. He was still running the show through. You know, people that he'd hired in the past. Bruce Pritchard being number one of them. Bruce Pritchard still there, I believe.

John Lauren, I just took like he was he was cut loose because he got named specifically in in the scandal. But, uh, yeah, Bruce Pritchard is literally I'd never heard him say a single one of his own opinions. He'd only say that Vince says this, Vince says that, Vince says this, Vince says Vince says Vince and Vince. And so he's literally just like, you know, I call them Vince's avatar. That's basically what he is. You returned to the FC after you left in 2019.

You were there to from 2017 to 2019. And in 2017, you is when you got married with Travis. I couldn't figure out from the date. So I didn't think the date was in your book. But at some point during this journey, you start trying to have children. Something I'm trying now with my partner on that process as well. And you talk in the book about a really heartbreaking incident where you're filming a TV show with 911, the TV show 911.

And there was a fight scenes and very stunt in that movie. And a day after that, you suffered a miscarriage. Yeah, I, well, I found out I was pregnant right before the show started filming. And then I, my finger got chopped off from the bow door following on it.

But, you know, we got, we went and checked out and there's, you know, the baby seemed just fine. But then I miscarried a couple weeks later. So I just kind of always felt like that was my fault that I wanted to keep doing dangerous stuff while I was pregnant because I thought it made me cool.

And then I was just like depressed and like drinking and smoking, not taking care of myself. And then I got pregnant right away again. And then we never even saw a heartbeat that time. But I was expecting anything more because I just wasn't taking care of myself. So you had team miscarriages.

And then I went through IVF, four cycles to IVF to be able to get eight embryos. We wanted to have like three or four kids. And the first one that we used actually worked that that's, you know, La K. Of my daughter now. But, um, but yeah, we're in the process of doing right now. And I just got news yesterday that our first cycle didn't work.

It's tough. Anyone going through is tough. And like people just don't talk about it. But, you know, it's hard because you have like so much hope every time. And, and, um, yeah, I don't know. I'll just have to wait until they know this book tour to try again. But I was really hoping we pregnant today. I was the kind of thing that like nobody talks about. So, and so the sublime women thing they're going through it alone. But, um, uh, it's really, really common.

But it's just, it's really hard when things don't work out. So many women and couples are going through this. And as you, as you say, it's not something we talk about because the mixture of feelings surrounding it are complex to say the least. I think like, you know, no one wants to burden anybody else with what they're going through. But a lot of times it's not you're not burdening other people.

You're, you know, I don't know if it's like camaraderie, but you're offering something to the other people that are going through the same thing. And a lot of times it's like a woman you can feel like it's, you know, your fault. But, you know, your peak productive years are your peak athletic years.

So I decided to use those on my career and, um, you know, thankfully I was able to get a bunch of embryos when I was young and hopefully, you know, we'll be able to still have a couple more kids. But, you know, I still got my Po and I got my boys. So, you know, I got a lot more than most than a lot of people that have been to it. But, you know.

So you've got three kids in total, two of them are from Travis's previous relationship with his previous partner, where you're now the stepmother and you've had a daughter of your own.

Yeah. People don't understand the, because there are people that have gone through this and they understand, although because the no one's talking about it, they've not had their feelings echoed by someone publicly before. And then there's this other group of people that have never been through this sort of IVF journey of success failure, failure success, failure for et cetera.

For those people that have never experienced it, what is that like? What is the complexity of the emotions that you experience in? It's just a grind. It's a grind and it's really hard on you mentally and physically your body and, um, like, like, this last cycle, I wasn't allowed to like, you know, work out or anything for weeks on end.

And so it's like my first time around when I had to do like four cycles in a row and then the transfer cycle, I mean, I, I was like, just not recognizable physically.

And, um, and just mentally so worn out, you're on all these cut of hormones and you're going through this like emotional rollercoaster and stuff and you can't really talk about it, you know, and, um, and, uh, yeah, sometimes like, I would, you know, I've just people there like psychotic trolls that like try and follow me around online and like, break me about these kind of things about like at the time I'm like not, not having a kid when I was trying and and stuff like that.

I guess the way you have to live with being a public figure, but, and you're not supposed to say anything about it because how dare you not be grateful for your good fortune, but, man, it, um, it sucks when you're going through it and you feel like, you know, the world is also still looking over your shoulder and you're not living up to, you know, your own expectations.

I don't know if there's a, I don't know if there's a feminine word for a masculine eating, but, you know, if I'm, you know, if you can't naturally have like a baby like I mean, my doctor was like if you probably if you stopped smoking and drinking, you can have a baby like, you know, spoke about your weed and drinking naturally have a baby, but because we wanted to have so many.

Like you should get all your embryos now. So when you're older, you can take your time and do it. And so it's just like, yeah, it's tough because there's a woman you have to choose am I going to go for a career during my peak years or am I going to like go for kids. And so, you know, luckily, you know, science makes it so you can have both, but it doesn't make it easy.

This has been very front of mind for me because because I'm trying now. And I've actually sat here yesterday with two fertility doctors, two different fertility doctors because I really wanted to understand the whole process and understand because, you know, I think people typically think that fertility is a female thing, but the fertility doctors told me quite clearly that when they go through the IVF rounds, it's 50 50 typically as to why sort of a baby isn't conceived.

It's 50% of the time is a man 50% of the time is the woman. And so I'm really grateful that you share that because lots of people are struggling and increasingly the IVF clinics, I think I think off the top of my head have grown 90% in popularity over the last couple of years and because we're having our careers are being extended further and a variety of other things, but sperm counts are dropping testoster and levels are dropping. It's only going to get more common.

Yeah, and one thing I will say that's great about it is because I did go through two pregnancies that, you know, my, my doctor told me it was probably because it wasn't because you talked your finger off it wasn't because of your drink in your smoke and like is because they're.

The genetically not conducive to life and so the great thing with IVF is you get these embryos and you can have them tested first and then you don't have to make a decision at 20 weeks long of like, oh, your baby has this kind of, you know, disorder malformality and you have to make that decision and so you know that they're healthy going into it, but then when you put all that effort into it and you finally do it and then it doesn't work out.

I mean, that's that's crushing itself to you know, so it's, it's tough. I mean, science is amazing, but it is a really difficult process to go through. What is your happiness come from these days? You've had a role sort of a pivot in terms of where you look for happiness over the last couple of years.

Yeah, I mean, my happiness is every day with my family that's that's what it is and I'm so lucky that I get to be like, you know, retired in my mid 30s and be able to spend like all my time with my, my husband and my kids and like to be there for them and to be able to not have to like worry about so much, you know, and get to just focus on them.

And yeah, I don't know, just day to day, I just, I mean, I say like I'm retired, but I like I still do stuff, but I don't do stuff with the intention of like I have to pay the bills with this and so. Yeah, I mean, I'm not like only like only my husband, only a wife and mom like I started writing as just a way to like kind of help me from you know not fixating on like myself or picking at myself and got into like screenwriting and which is just like really great way for.

If I am having like just you know, that's like a destructive thought process or something like that that I can like turn my mind into towards something creative and actually like make something out of all of that you know mental energy that i'm just turning inward and like hurting myself with and so.

So then came out with this book and I've actually I'm working on my fourth script right now and my first one's been made into a comic book and which I touch on the book too, but it's also like doing these kind of things not with the intention of like making millions of dollars or you know,

a bunch of people but just that the active it is so fun I got my I'm in turning right now at the story department of w of e that's all working on the car yeah learning how to be a reader and write coverages and let's you know read lots lots of scripts and make me a better writer and like learn like the dark art of like writing coverages which people don't see they're not public but.

It's still a script down to his few words as possible and no you're looking forward all these things and just kind of like learning these skills that i'm really fascinated in and.

And that's just like validating in themselves you know and like with our ranch and everything like that and raising our cows and like my favorite part is we took this land in Oregon that was like completely degrading you know it been mismanaged for years there was more dirt than there was a grass and to be able to we're using more generative practices. With our way you and our poultry to build like bring this land back to life you know so that's like.

Then more rewarding to me than reading a whole morning of positive comments on the freaking picture is actually like going out and like seeing this land become better and like that kind of stuff is like really rewarding and I don't have to worry about. You know promoting it or what people think of it or how much money i'm making from it so yeah like i'm retired but i'm busy.

It must be difficult to go from those arenas that I watched you in all around the world with all those people screaming and cheering to. This farm in Oregon because I don't know I don't want to assume that the address be always talk about this adrenaline rush that you get from fighting and competing. The opposite of that is a farm in Oregon.

I guess so but I mean I love my favorite crowds like Russell in front of our like small crowds i love being like a small non televised crowd that's my favorite and like fight. I could fight in closet I could fight arena it's not making it better to me you know I just want to win the fight like the fight itself is what I care about that so it gave me the joy I was completely blocking them out. I mean they're welcome to be there but they're not that they're not.

Part of my actual experience of the fight itself i mean winning and everyone being like that's incredible feeling that's great but i'm. That's not why i got into it and get into.

Like you know judo isn't like a big sport that there's gonna be crowds of people cheering for you for you know you anyone that's crazy enough to want to win a little bit gold medal and anything it's not because they want to be famous and they want a bunch of people to know or cheer for them it's because they want to be the best at something i just. Love that.

Process of going from knowing nothing about something to mastering i love the process of mastery you set used a word at a self destructive thoughts am i right in thinking that your self destructive thoughts which appear to still be with you. Today are the reason in part why you you were so great when it came to the UFC and fighting yeah i guess like you know enter that that flow state i guess of being like so.

Lost in doing something that you can't think of anything else everything else disappears like that was always my. Favorite place to be you know swimming i didn't have that your mind is up to wonder while you're swimming or in judo you know there's nothing happening except for what's happening in front of you and fighting there's nothing going on except for what's going on in front you and. Progressing there's nothing going on except for the the reality created in this match that you're in.

And yeah i love being completely lost in the in the task of doing something that best that you can like that's something that's addicting and i guess something that i still do now you know trying to do like through writing and and everything like that but i don't know i just. I guess it's just where my where my happy places.

But you still have those self destructive thoughts today i mean all the time but i mean it's just kind of like something you're like wake up and be like oh my god i remember that thing that you said several years ago that was so stupid remember that thing you tweeted you stupid bitch like you know like just. Things that like come up that you can't do anything about it but um.

Just you know roommate and sometimes it's like you know try not to think of a blue duck kind of a. And a lot of times it's like that it's sometimes i'll be in the middle of something great and i'll just like don't think of something bad and then because of that it'll like pop up in my head and yeah i don't know did you go to therapy at any point in your career.

I mean i've tried but i have you know my mom's a psychologist so you know anyone that i want to talk to i was just kind of like you're not as smart as my mom. Yeah but i mean i'm tempted but i've never found anyone that i really like clicked with but i've given it a couple of shots but i mean i mean maybe stop everybody i don't think it's for me.

I'm sure that if i'm honest doing my research is this beautiful picture here and the question i have for you is about the lessons you learned from this man. I'm gonna keep this you can keep it. Lessons i learned you know i wish i remember more we don't even have a video or anything you know very few pictures.

But i don't know i think there's just more of the examples that he gave me of how to actually like be a man and how to be a great husband like my mom and dad were so in love with each other. I remember they were like make out of our breakfast and we were like oh. Yeah i know but he was like so in love with my mom and she was so in love with him and i think that's why i was smart enough to wait until trap.

Because i knew what i was looking for and so he showed me what a loving husband and father is and you know he's the one that when my mom is so worried about you know me being late developmentally and all these things my mom said he was the one that was. I was like you know Ronnie is a sleeper she's going to show everybody and so he was the one that like believe that was going to be like exceptional and put that belief in my mind that i'm exceptional and i'm going to do incredible things.

And so yeah i didn't never forgot it i guess he was right. You named after him right he's called Ron yeah i was supposed to be a Ronald John rousey junior but i'm a girl so i'm on the gene rousey the first. And you did show everyone that's exactly what you did in your career you showed everyone and you know it's funny because i'm a big UFC fan so i watched your career.

I enjoyed it so much he gave me some incredible moments throughout all of the sort of those major fights that you had and it's interesting because from reading your book and speaking to you today i realize that the very human cost of the entertainment that i enjoyed is a fan.

I behind that set someone who is quite clearly pretty obsessed with winning being mastery in your own words and being the very best everything you apply yourself to and with that comes a cost you know we don't have to pay the cost as fans we just get to enjoy the entertainment and so it's very easy i think without the full picture being illuminated to not pay tribute to someone who gave us so much as fans.

But in behind the scenes had to struggle in really profound ways from the age of six years old for that joy that you brought to all of our lives so on behalf of fans that do understand the full picture i personally want to say thank you so much for that because.

Yeah you know i used to step to three four a m in the morning in the UK to watch you fight because you are like nothing i'd ever seen you know you define the division you you basically created the concept of women fighting in the UFC and you did it away and with a star that i'd never seen before and frankly haven't really seen sense so thank you for that i know it's difficult i can tell from when you talk about those moments how difficult it still is but that's what i would expect from someone who is one of the real goats of the season.

Thank you for writing this book as well it's incredibly honest and i think it's perfectly written in many respects but the timing of it is perfect because you're in a certain chapter of your life where you're able to look back on all of these experiences with a certain retrospective clarity and wisdom that is incredibly helpful and you found yourself on the other side of all of this stuff now as a as a mother and as a as a normal human away from the WWE in the UFC.

And from that perspective i think everyone can learn a tremendous mount about life about happiness about family about committing yourselves to something in the way in with the form of mastery that you had but also more more than anything what i take from it is what really matters in life.

And i think that's if i've interpreted correctly is the real objective of the book we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. Uh oh why does everyone get scared when i want to go to the story okay well i can't you're the unknown it's not it's not it's not terrifying sometimes they're horrific and what was the most fun moment of your entire life of my entire life yeah most fun.

God i mean i've had a lot of fun. Um they're probably intimate moments of a husband that i can't share. But we have a good time. You'll be happy for the shout out. Ronda rousey are five out available everywhere right now an incredible book and i recommend everyone to go and get it thank you so much ronda. how