Dana White recently said that he thinks Ronda Rousey is going to retire and “ride off into the sunset” after her last loss to Amanda Nunes. The UFC president spoke about the topic more, suggesting to TMZ that the former champion doesn’t “have it anymore”.
"It's no different than any other sport. When you're a professional athlete and you're performing at a certain level, the day comes when you don't anymore. It happened to Ronda," White said.
“Who knows, why? This sport is very very tough. You have to stay at the top of your game. It’s a young man and young woman’s sport. Fighting, throughout the history of time, one day you show up and you don’t have it anymore. It always happens that way. You never know when it’s going to happen. It just creeps up on you. It’s a rough sport.”
White also went on to say that the UFC will “always be her house”, and that they’ll remain good friends no matter what.
Rousey has yet to officially retire or even speak about the topic, but it’s interesting that White is suggesting that the long time champion won’t return, and that she also doesn’t “have it anymore”.
The mental aspect would be a different conversation, and one that armchair psychologists aren’t qualified to discuss factually. That said, Rousey is still just 29-years-old with very few bouts to her name, so it may not be safe to assume that she’s out of her prime and doesn’t have it physically anymore.
Sure, she suffered 2 tough losses, but in those 14 total bouts in 5 years, she only really has been in the cage for a total of 32 minutes and 23 seconds. Majority of that time was also spent with her completely dominating people on the ground too. If reports are true, Rousey may not be taking that much hits during training either.
Don’t forget, Rousey never even went down after Nunes landed power shot after power shot, so durability isn’t really in question as much as her technique was.
As renowned coach Firas Zahabi said, Rousey just never really developed her striking, defense and footwork properly. Even when people were in awe of the knockout of Bethe Correia, she didn’t really show very good technique. She remained at the top for years, getting by with her judo skills and showing very little improvement in everything else. On the other hand, the rest of the field studied her game, and trained to catch up and beat it.
So while White suggests that she just suddenly doesn’t have it anymore, I’d argue that Rousey only lost after being faced with a well prepared and a far better striker in Holly Holm. The same goes with Nunes, although the psychological factor could have played a part as well as the stylistic match up.
Dana is correct that MMA is generally a “young (wo)man’s sport”, and while Rousey may indeed retire, there’s really no evidence to say that she isn’t in her athletic and physical prime anymore.