Ronda Rousey’s weak chin has been exposed in her last two fights — and now we might know why.
Rousey apparently doesn’t allow her sparring partners to touch her face during training and made them sign contracts agreeing not to divulge what went on during the sessions — under the threat of million-dollar lawsuits.
That is what UFC bantamweight title contender Julianna Pena told the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast last week.
“She’s not allowed to get hit in sparring. These girls have to sign these waivers to say that ‘We never hit Ronda, and we’ll never talk about this type of training ever’ and all this stuff, you know? She’s not really taking the toll in the fight camp of getting punched in the face legitimately, so she doesn’t really know what that feels like,” Pena said, according to a BloodyElbow.com transcript.
“She’s a superstar and they don’t want to see her get any damage. So, it’s like whenever the girls would go hard on her, whenever they’d come forward and start banging it out on her, they’d tell them, ‘Hey. Knock it off. Stop it. Don’t hit her so hard, and then sign this waiver and say that you were never here and that you never punched her. Don’t ever talk about how well you did in training and stuff like that because you have to sign this dotted line or else we’ll sue you for a million dollars.'”
Rousey became a worldwide superstar after winning Casinoslot her first 12 professional MMA fights in dominating fashion. In most of her fights, she overwhelmed her opponents so thoroughly that she didn’t take any punishment. However, in her last two fights, Rousey’s lack of a stand-up game was exposed and she was knocked out twice.
In Rousey’s first loss, against Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November 2015, Rousey got rocked by a few clean punches and then was put to sleep by a head kick. Against Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 in December 2016, Rousey walked straight into a flurry of Nunes strikes and was knocked out in just 48 seconds.
Pena is not a known Rousey training partner, but her comments align with what Raquel Pennington told ESPN in early January.
“I can’t really talk about how sparring went or what we did. Ronda asked me to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so I did,” Pennington said. “All I can say is the fact I was able to put in work with her and that it was solid work. I can’t say too much more than that.”
Pennington competed against a Rousey-coached team on “The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rousey vs. Team Tate,” making it to the semifinals before losing to Jessica Rakoczy via a third-round decision. Pena, Pennington’s teammate on Team Tate, went on to win the whole thing.
After winning “The Ultimate Fighter,” Pena reeled off three straight victories, rose to No. 2 in the bantamweight rankings and earned a title shot elimination fight Saturday at UFC on Fox 23 against Valentina Shevchenko, which she lost.
While no official announcement has been made, UFC president Dana White hinted on the “UFC Unfiltered” this week podcast that Shevchenko will fight Amanda Nunes for the bantamweight title in the near future.
In the same interview, White said Rousey is “probably done [fighting]. She’s going to ride off into the sunset and start living life outside of fighting.”
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