Ronda Rousey has gone back to keeping a low profile since her devastating TKO loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 in December, but she recently resurfaced to show her support for those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Rousey, who spent part of her childhood in North Dakota, is reported to have showed up to one of the protest camps led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe last week with bread, vegetables and camping supplies like tents and wood-burning stoves.
“Just absolutely amazing,” activist leader Linda Black Elk told TMZ of Rousey’s unconditional support for their cause. “She’s an incredible person and just so humble. She wasn’t asking for any publicity and when I talked to her about that, she basically said that she felt like a disappointment. She just felt that everyone was really upset with her. I couldn’t believe I was doing it, but it was very important for me to let her know just how important she is to the native community in particular.
“That’s what keeps us going, that kind of support and just the morale booster it was. That’s what keeps us going. It means everything to us.”
The pipeline had been halted in December by former president Barack Obama, amid concerns that it could contaminate the drinking water on the tribe’s land where it passes through, but since taking office in the past week, President Donald Trump has given it the go-ahead once again.
According to Black Elk, Rousey’s support wasn’t a one-off, and she’s vowed to return to join the protestors in the future.
“She actually told me that she would come back and stand right on the front lines and get pepper sprayed alongside everyone else,” Black Elk said.
Rousey is not the only fighter to show support for the tribe, with one of her former opponents Sara McMann also now having thrown her weight behind the protest, posting on Instagram earlier today that, “I stand with Standing Rock!! Clean drinking water and respecting burial grounds are the BARE MINIMUM of respect and human decency. #nodapl #waterislife”
