A new report suggests that retired UFC legend Ronda Rousey is in talks to make her professional boxing debut against Katie Taylor in Las Vegas next summer.
According to Boxing Scene, Rousey is in ‘active negotiations’ for the bout against the former lineal lightweight champion Taylor, which has also attracted the attention of Netflix.
Rousey has made it known in recent months that she’s been back training, but she’s also danced around the topic of whether she would return to fighting or not, although she did rule out fighting at the UFC: White House event in June next year.
If Rousey did return it would be a surprising decision for a number of reasons, not least of which would be that the 38-year-old stated last year that she quit fighting in the UFC due to concerns about her brain health after having a long history of concussions dating back as far as her youth while competing in Judo.
On top of that, Rousey hasn’t fought in nine years, and her last two UFC fights went very badly with a KO loss to Holly Holm followed by a TKO defeat against Amanda Nunes.
Rousey’s success in the sport was largely tied to her decorated judo background and devastatingly effective utilization of armbar submissions that accounted for 9 of her 12 career victories.
However, as time went on Rousey began to train boxing more, but though she did register a KO win over Bethe Correia via punches, her technique was suspect, and that became badly exposed in her losses to Holm and Nunes.
Rousey retired from the sport after those tough defeats and went on to forge a new successful career path as a pro-wrestling superstar in WWE, while in recent years she’s given birth to two children with former UFC heavyweight fighter Travis Browne.
And if she did make a comeback for this fight, Rousey would be making her boxing debut against fighter in Taylor who may be close to retiring at 39-years-old after recently vacating her lightweight title, but is still at the top of the sport, having just come off high-profile back-to-back wins over Amanda Serrano to take her career record to 25-1.
Taylor is a big star, and Rousey was a global icon in her day, so this fight would certainly draw a big audience if it did air on Netflix, but it seems like an opportunity that ‘Rowdy’ would do well to avoid.
