With Ronda Rousey set to leave the WWE soon there’s been talk that she could be on the verge of a UFC comeback, but it seems there might be nothing to it.
That’s the word according to MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani who claims she’s not set for a sensational return to the Octagon after all.
“Ronda Rousey is not considering a UFC comeback, I’m told,” Helwani wrote. “No truth to the rumors started yesterday.”
The rumor had been around for a while, but had been amplified yesterday when UFC On ESPN 49 fighter Chelsea Chandler said she’d heard that the former bantamweight champion may return in a bid to win the featherweight title recently vacated by the retiring Amanda Nunes.
“I’ve been hearing Ronda is coming back,” Chandler said at the UFC On ESPN 49 media day ahead of her featherweight fight against Norma Dumont. “I’ve heard she’s coming back at 145. You never know. … If I got out there and put on the performance I plan on putting (on), I’ll welcome her to 145. I think it would be a great fight. It has been a long time for her and things change, people get better, and I think people are on to her one-trick-pony armbar. Money talks, and she would bring eyes to the sport again. I feel like her time in WWE is starting to go down, so I’d like to see it.”
However, Saturday night’s headliner Holly Holm, who infamously head kick KO’d Rousey to derail her hype train and seize the bantamweight title back in 2015 was more sceptical about the rumor.
“She’s doing her own thing,” Holm told reporters. “Honestly, I truly think she’s happier doing what she’s doing now than she was in fighting. I just sense that. I don’t know so I’m not going to say 100 percent on that, but I sense that she’s enjoying her time and her life and being a mom and doing her wrestling. I honestly don’t think [she’s coming back].
“She knows she can do whatever she wants. She’s made a name for herself and she can go out there and she’s going to do what she wants, and this is what she wants to do.”
And it seems that Holm’s intuition was right, which could be bad news for the 145lb division, which has always been the most understaffed and underutilized weight class in the entire promotion, and without a major star like Nunes or Rousey at the helm may now be at risk of being made extinct.
