Ronda Rousey: I Kept This A Secret My Entire Career! WWE Is A Mess!

1. 0:00 – 2:10

   Intro

   1. RRRonda Rousey0:00

      People don't know about this. (camera clicking) I had to keep it a secret. (instrumental music plays) Uh, it's really, really difficult. Presenting Rowdy Ronda Rousey.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:22

      Ronda, you were voted the best female athlete of all time. What was it that made you the person that sits in front of me today?

   3. RRRonda Rousey0:30

      So, when I was a kid, it was tough. My dad, he ended up taking his life when I was eight. And in school, I got picked on a lot. I actually dropped out when I was 16 and moved away from home to train full time. But a lot of the coaches thought that being abusive to the athletes is what gave them the best results. My first coach dislocated my jaw. People don't know about this, but I would get concussions all the time, and every time you get a concussion, it's easier to get another one. So, by the time I got into MMA, I had to be able to finish the person off immediately. It was those experiences that made me the world champion at...

   4. SBSteven Bartlett1:07

      And you stacked up a bunch of records, including the fastest ever win-

   5. RRRonda Rousey1:11

      Oh no! What a kick! Oh! ... fastest submission, fastest title defense- She's home!

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:14

      But then that loss to Holly Holm.

   7. RRRonda Rousey1:16

      And just like that! Yeah. My whole world turned upside down and I had to disappear for a while.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:24

      And, um, you decided to move on to the WWE. (camera clicking) You don't have nice things to say about it.

   9. RRRonda Rousey1:29

      Vince McMahon just created a fundamentally sick environment, and I think he still is running the company to this day.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:35

       Why? Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know. And the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you, and enjoy this episode. (instrumental music plays)

2. 2:10 – 3:46

   Being Born With A Rare Disease

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:10

      Ronda, when I interview people, I often ask them to tell me the most sort of pertinent first event in their story that went on to shape who they are. And with you, from reading through your story, it's quite clear that the first potentially significant event happened as you were being born.

   2. RRRonda Rousey2:29

      Yeah, I, uh, I was born with the, um, umbilical cord around my neck, and, uh, I was, like, a zero on the Apgar scale, which is like the health of a baby when they're born. I was blue, they thought I was dead. Um, had to... It took a while to revive me. And, um, I had, uh, some damage from that, um, some neurological damage which expressed itself as a motor speech disorder called apraxia, which is basically, I would have words formed in my head and try to say it, but there was a kinda disconnect between my brain and my mouth, and it would come out differently than how I said it. So, um, I ended up having to do many years of speech therapy to be able to get over it. And sometimes I, uh, I struggle a little bit, but, uh, um, I've, I've, you know, dealt with it well enough where people don't notice. But, uh, you know, doing things like pro wrestling promos and stuff, where everybody, like, will, uh, scrutinize you for, like, saying a single syllable or pre-, you know, p- p- not producing every single... not pronouncing every single word per- perfectly. Like if I just stuttered like I did just now or mispronounced something like I did just now in a wrestling promo, I would be, like, hung over it. And so, um, you know, there's little things like that that still express themselves to this day, but mostly it's not noticeable now.

3. 3:46 – 5:27

   Ronda's Struggles as a Child

   1. RRRonda Rousey3:46

   2. SBSteven Bartlett3:46

      The umbilical cord was wrapped around your neck.

   3. RRRonda Rousey3:48

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett3:48

      The doctors gave you a zero out of 10 in terms of your health when you were a baby. What age did you learn to speak properly?

   5. RRRonda Rousey3:58

      Um, I didn't really speak, like, in full, intelligible sentences until I was, like, around five or so.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett4:05

      When they did brain scans, did they notice anything different in your brain at that point because of your... because of the umbilical cord incident?

   7. RRRonda Rousey4:11

      No, no one ever, like, did a brain scan or anything like that. I got tested for deafness for a long time, autism, um... Apraxia didn't exist as a diagnosis until after I'd kind of really gotten over it. Um, it was actually, like, a, a f- like, a fan, a mom, and her daughter that, uh, brought me, like, a pamphlet, and it was like, "We've heard your story. It's been so inspirational to us. We think what you have is this thing called apraxia." And, um, and I was like, "Oh my God, this actually fits everything that, like, experienced perfectly," and, uh, we ended up having a Walk for Apraxia here where I got to, like, meet a buncha different kids and stuff that were dealing with similar things. But yeah, it's kind of, like, newer on, uh, on... in the field, people being aware of it. But I think that's what made me, um, delve into sports so much because, um, you know, with judo especially, you, like, communicate physically with the person. You have to put your hands on another person, you have to talk and interact with that person. And so when I was having a hard time, uh, when we moved back to LA, like, really socializing with other kids sports spe- you know, specifically judo made it, like, kinda... It was like a conduit for me to be able to, like, connect with other kids and have something to talk about.

4. 5:27 – 7:35

   Her Father’s Death When She Was A Child

   1. RRRonda Rousey5:27

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:27

      What was home life like for you before the age of 10?

   3. RRRonda Rousey5:31

      I mean, I thought everything was perfect and awesome. Uh, my, my dad passed when I was eight, though, and, um, I didn't know, but he had broken his back in a sledding accident when we'd first moved to North Dakota, and, um, he had, like, a rare blood disorder where he couldn't heal from it. And so, um, he had been receiving, uh, diagnoses basically saying he'd become, like, a paraplegic and then a quadriplegic and eventually die. And, um, we didn't know that he was going through this or dealing with chronic pain or anything like that, so he ended up taking his life when he was... when, when I was eight. But he'd been going through that for years, but had kept it from us. And so-... then, like, my kind of, my whole world turned upside down. And then my mom ended up re, remarrying a couple years later, and then when I was around 10, 11 is when we moved to, um, right on the border of Santa Monica and Venice.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett6:30

      Y- your father had a sledding accident. He, he's told that he's going to be a quadriplegic soon.

   5. RRRonda Rousey6:37

      Yes, at some point. He broke his back, and, um, his, uh, disease called Benard-Soulier syndrome makes it difficult to clot your blood. It's like a platelet d- you know, your platelets are mal- malformed, and, uh, so he wasn't able to heal basically, and, uh, they put a rod in his back to try and help it heal, but his spine was just crumbling away, so his spine was basically, like, falling apart.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett7:00

      He died by suicide?

   7. RRRonda Rousey7:02

      Yeah. He, uh, he said he didn't want his l- our last memories of him to be laying in a bed with tubes running in and out of him. He was in a lot of pain all the time, but didn't like being, you know, doped up on painkillers, so he just wanted to go out his own way.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett7:19

      D- did you have any idea that he was suffering at that time?

   9. RRRonda Rousey7:22

      None at all. Completely kept it from us.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett7:28

       So, so one minute he's there, and then the next minute he's not?

   11. RRRonda Rousey7:31

       Yeah.

5. 7:35 – 10:38

   Finding Out About Her Dad's Suicide

   1. SBSteven Bartlett7:35

      How did you find out that he had died by suicide?

   2. RRRonda Rousey7:39

      Um, my mom told me, right, you know, right after it happened.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett7:45

      H- how, how, how does a mother explain that to an eight-year-old child?

   4. RRRonda Rousey7:52

      I mean, she's a PhD in educational psychology, so very, you know, technically I guess. You know, she just kind of lay- laid the facts out of this is what happened, and this is what's going on, and we wanted to keep it from you 'cause, uh, sh- she said that my dad just wanted us to be kids and not have to worry about it.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett8:12

      She told you the details of his, his suicide?

   6. RRRonda Rousey8:15

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett8:17

      What impact does that have on you?

   8. RRRonda Rousey8:20

      Um, I mean, in the long run, I felt like it just kind of gave me this feeling that even if I feel like everything's okay, that everything can come crashing down at any moment, and, uh, I guess I, like, lost any feeling of security of even when everything's going great, I feel like, like, the ball is about to drop, you know? And, um, that's something that I had to, like, you know, work through till this day, and I feel like mostly I'm, I can feel pretty secure with my life and where I'm at. But yeah, it plagued me for a long time.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett8:51

      You were close to him?

   10. RRRonda Rousey8:53

       Yeah, I was a big time daddy's girl. Yeah. But as part of the speech therapy was that my sisters were talking for me, and so, uh, he had to work, uh, a little bit of a drive from the house, so he would be, um, in Devil's Lake during the week, and we'd come home to Minot on the weekend. And so, um, the speech therapist said I should spend one-on-one time with a parent so that I'm forced to speak so my sisters can't translate my gibberish for me. And so we would... It'd be me and him during the week, and we'd come home on the weekend, so he was like, you know, my whole world.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett9:28

       It's, um, it's almost unimaginable for an eight-year-old to try and process that in reality and, like, the... Because I think at eight years old, you don't understand the concept of suicide or why, uh, that h- you know, why a human could die by suicide, and at that age, what is the story you, you tell yourself? In the book, you talk, you talk about how you s- would tell yourself that he's going a- he's just gone away on business and that he's going to return at some point.

   12. RRRonda Rousey9:53

       Yeah, well, th- that's the only time that he would really be gone away from the house for extended periods of times because he had, like, a business trip or something, and so that was just kind of, like, what I told myself to cope for, for a while, but then I found out later that, uh, my grandfather committed suicide as well, so he was a second generation suicide.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett10:16

       Your siblings and your mother, the impact of the, the loss on your dad on them, was that noticeable? Did you notice a change in them?

   14. RRRonda Rousey10:25

       My, my, like, sisters didn't ever really want to talk ab- talk about it, and I think, you know, my, uh... Yeah, no one really w- wanted to talk about it at all. It wasn't, like, the kind of thing that we would bring up all the time.

6. 10:38 – 11:46

   Ronda's Mother

   1. RRRonda Rousey10:39

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:39

      Your mother at this time, she's, um, a champion in her own right?

   3. RRRonda Rousey10:43

      Yeah, in everything. She, um, got a perfect score on the SATs at 16, graduated college at 19, um, then she won the World Championships in Judo, the first American to ever win the World Championships in Judo, while she was working as a single mother engineer and getting her PhD in educational psychology.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett11:02

      Wow.

   5. RRRonda Rousey11:03

      Yeah, she's incredible.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett11:05

      She... When I was reading about her and doing some research on her, she sounds like a little bit of a superwoman, so I went and found, um... I wanted to see her.

   7. RRRonda Rousey11:13

      Yep.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett11:13

      And I found this picture of her.

   9. RRRonda Rousey11:16

      Yep, that's Mom.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett11:17

       She looks like a badass.

   11. RRRonda Rousey11:18

       She is a badass.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett11:19

       I want someone else with her.

   13. RRRonda Rousey11:19

       She was the original arm bar lady. She, uh, actually tore her knees out when she was 17 and had to learn how to win basically just on the ground, so, um, she was the one that would always win by arm bar.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett11:32

       Oh, really?

   15. RRRonda Rousey11:32

       Yeah.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett11:32

       Wins in the ground.

   17. RRRonda Rousey11:32

       And she's kind of, like, taught me how she did it and, you know, I added, added to it and learned things as well, but it's become, like, kind of a family heirloom, is the arm bar. Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett11:43

       (laughs) She's-

   19. RRRonda Rousey11:43

       The family arm bar. (laughs)

7. 11:46 – 13:34

   What's Been Ingrained in Her as a Kid

   1. RRRonda Rousey11:46

   2. SBSteven Bartlett11:46

      I, I often think that, um, our childhoods and those sort of early formative experiences and the traumas that we experience, they leave fingerprints o- on us in various ways that follow us for the rest of our lives, um, for good, for bad, and sometimes for ugly. When you think about those sort of first 10 years of your life and the fingerprints it left on you as an adult and the person that sits in front of me today, what are those things that are, um, most sort of ingrained in you from that time of your life?

   3. RRRonda Rousey12:14

      What's most ingrained in me from being a kid? Um...Well, I think like, you know, like, losing a parent is a huge formative event. Have you ever read, uh, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell?

   4. SBSteven Bartlett12:26

      No. But I've spoken to him on the podcast, but no, I haven't.

   5. RRRonda Rousey12:28

      Yeah. Well, he mentions that, uh, that kids that lose a parent before they're 10 actually end up being, uh, more successful statistically later in life. And, uh, it's like, well, he- he's the one that delved into it, into his book, but, um, you know, when I was reading it, I'm like, "Oh, you know, I could see, I could see that that makes sense in a way." And, um, the, the apraxia and stuff, like, really pushing me towards sports and, like, being physical and, and things like that. And being the youngest of sisters all... You know, I was the one that was, that... Getting beat on at the house, so it made me tougher and wanted to constantly be able to, like, prove myself as, you know, not just being a little baby but deserving of respect and stuff like that. And those kind of, like, made me into, um, the kind of kid that would... When I first started swimming, I wanted to win the Olympics in swimming. When I first started judo, I was like, "I just want to win the Olympics in this now." And, um... But that was just how encouraging my parents were, you know? They're like, "Oh, you want to swim? You're gonna... You can win the Olympics in swimming," you know? And so, I was just always fed that expectation that I could do everything.

8. 13:34 – 15:59

   Becoming a Prodigy of Judo

   1. RRRonda Rousey13:34

   2. SBSteven Bartlett13:35

      And at sort of 10 years old, you moved to Santa Monica, um, and you had your first attempt and try at judo? Is that right?

   3. RRRonda Rousey13:43

      Yeah. I, um... Well, I was swimming here, but I wasn't so much into swimming. It's kind of boring. (laughs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett13:51

      (laughs)

   5. RRRonda Rousey13:52

      And, uh, I didn't like waking up in the morning and jumping in a cold pool. (laughs)

   6. SBSteven Bartlett13:55

      (laughs) Right. I don't blame you.

   7. RRRonda Rousey13:57

      Yeah. So after a little bit of that, I was like, "Uh, I want to do something else." And my mom, uh, she trained here in the '80s back when she did judo. And so, she went to go visit a bunch of her old teammates that had all gone and opened up clubs of their own, and I went and tried it. And I remember my first day, I didn't even have a hair tie. My hair was all over the place, crazy, and I was, like, trying to figure out how to do judo and, uh, I had the most fun that I ever had. 'Cause I loved that there was no one way to do it. If it, you know, if it worked, it was right, and it was kind of, like, mentally intriguing. You have to figure it out. You're, like, solving a puzzle. You're, like, having a conversation with the other person, you know? And so, um, because it was so, like, mentally engaging, I think that's why I liked it so much, and uh, uh, when I won my first tournament, I got that feeling of winning that I didn't quite get in, in swimming. I was one of the top kids in the state, but I wouldn't, like, really win swimming meets. And so, um, first time I won something, I got, like, addicted to that feeling, I guess. So, I actually dropped out of school when I was 16 to be able to train and do judo full-time and move away from home to train full-time.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett15:03

      What was your mother's opinion on you doing judo, seeing as she was a champion in judo herself, when her daughter turns around and says, "Mom, I'm... I want to do judo too"?

   9. RRRonda Rousey15:13

      Um, I mean, I can't really say how she felt, but, I mean, I was kind of, like, identified as being, like, a prodigy of judo pretty young. And, uh, she wanted to kind of take an outside role of making sure that I was training with all the right people at the right time. She wasn't the person that was on... Like, she, of course, taught me everything that, that she could and, um, but she didn't really want to be that overbearing coach mom on the mat. She more of, like... It's like, "You go here train with this person. You go here train with that person," was like the overarching, like, architect-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett15:47

       Mm-hmm.

   11. RRRonda Rousey15:47

       ... of my career and everything like that.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett15:49

       You, um, you enter your first tournament and you win the tournament with instant wins, ippons. I don't know what an ippon is, but-

   13. RRRonda Rousey15:56

       Ippon is, like, if you throw someone flat on their back.

9. 15:59 – 20:30

   Her Competitive Nature for Fighting

   1. RRRonda Rousey15:59

   2. SBSteven Bartlett15:59

      Okay, right. So, you win that first tournament. People start considering you to be this child prodigy in judo. What was it about... When you look back on yourself now with all the wisdom you have, what was it about you that made you excel above your peers at judo? What was it about your character or something that you did?

   3. RRRonda Rousey16:16

      Uh, I mean, there had to be some sort of a genetic factor. (laughs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett16:20

      (laughs)

   5. RRRonda Rousey16:21

      'Cause, like, my mom and my dad are both, like, good athletes. Um, but I think, yeah, part of it was personality wise, but I just really wanted to win and that I cared.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett16:31

      Why?

   7. RRRonda Rousey16:32

      I mean, winning felt good, but I also... It really hurt for me to lose. I hated... Like, my first tournament I lost, I, like, locked myself in a room for, like, a week. (laughs) I was so upset. But I was willing to get my heart broken. I was willing to care about something so much that my heart would be broken if I didn't, you know, achieve it. And I don't know. I think I felt like the idea of being better at something than everybody else, like, made me special somehow. It was, like, proof. (laughs) And it was also... It wasn't like I was dragging myself through doing it to be great at something because of that's what it was. I, I really enjoyed, like, mastering the art of judo, like, figuring it out. It was, like, endlessly intriguing to me at the time. And I remember when I was 16, I, like, realized while I was, you know, doing newaza, which is fighting on the ground, that the end of one move was the beginning of another one. And that's when I moved from, like, trying to memorize all these separate techniques to trying to, um, combine them into, like, a path and, like, a web. And I, um, I didn't come up and... You know, newaza in judo is not the focus of the sport, really. Um, maybe it's, like, 20% of the time people spend on the ground, maybe less. But it wasn't like Gracie Jiu-Jitsu where they, like, show you, like, "Oh, this is the way and this is the structure." No. It was very open-ended, and so I was kind of, like... I had to create, like, my own, like, system basically and my own fighting style and everything like that. And that was, I think, the most interesting to me, that I was, like, creating a philosophy and everything and concepts and how, how would I piece everything together. And so, um, I think that was the most interesting part. I, I could train for hours and hours and hours and hours and not realize when I'm tired because I'm trying to piece something together.... um, but I also... I think we, we call it, like, opposite ADD, where I, like, fixate on things for, like, hours on end, and I can't get off of it. And, uh... But if you tell me to, like, run, you know, I'm like, "Oh my god." The whole time, I'm like, "Okay, I'm tired, I'm tired. I'm more tired than I was." But if you tell me, like... If I had to try and figure out how to, like, do a certain punch a certain right way or do a certain throw the certain right way, I would do it for hours on end trying to get it absolutely perfect and not realize all that time had passed. So... And sometimes, that's, like, a negative thing, where I'll fixate on something, like something stupid I did it, like, several years ago and not be able to stop myself from thinking about it. But it's also the same thing that would keep me training on a single technique for hours on end just trying to get it right. And my mom said when I was a kid, I would draw the same picture over and over and over again. I would... I remember it was, like, a bunny (laughs) in the middle, and there was, like, a bush, a bush and a tree and a tree on each side and, like, a sun with the cool glasses, right? My mom would be like, "What? Why do you keep drawing this picture over and over?" You know, thousands of times, I would draw the same drawing. And, uh, she said my answer was that I'm just trying to get it to match the picture in my head. I couldn't understand why when I thought of a bunny and of bushes and all that stuff and I drew it, it didn't look exactly like a bunny, and so I would keep drawing it over and over and over again to try and get it. And, uh, I guess that's like, you know, my personality, I guess. It's something that I can't really control for, for better or for worse (laughs) .

   8. SBSteven Bartlett19:52

      I- is that perfectionism? Is that how you'd kind of define that, this sort of obsessive, um, pursuit of making the thing perfect as you see it?

   9. RRRonda Rousey20:02

      I don't think it's so much perfectionism as it is mastery. I wanna, like, master and understand something completely. It's kind of like an unfinished puzzle, you know, 'cause I can live in squalor. Like (laughs) -

   10. SBSteven Bartlett20:16

       Mm-hmm.

   11. RRRonda Rousey20:16

       ... I don't think, like-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett20:17

       (laughs)

   13. RRRonda Rousey20:17

       ... the perfectionism of everything around me-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett20:18

       (laughs)

   15. RRRonda Rousey20:18

       ... is really, uh, um, so, so important. But yeah, being able to c- to understand something completely is something that nags me. If I don't completely understand it, I have to, like, keep going back to it.

10. 20:30 – 21:55

    Moving in With Her Coach At 16

    1. RRRonda Rousey20:30

    2. SBSteven Bartlett20:30

       Big Jim. You go and train with Big Jim at 16 years old. You leave home-

    3. RRRonda Rousey20:34

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett20:34

       ... at 16 years old and go and train with Big Jim. Who's Big Jim, and why did you go and live with him? What, for eight months roughly?

    5. RRRonda Rousey20:41

       Oh, god. I mean, on and off for, like, years I was up there. Um, uh... Well, Big Jim was one of the best coaches in the country, and he trained his son, Little Jimmy, who had just won the 1999 World Championships in judo. And, um, I know judo's not that big in the U.S., so the places that are good at it and have good coaches and good people to train with are few and far between, and, um, Pedro's Judo was one of those places.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett21:10

       Yeah, leaving home at 16 is, um, is unusual, to say the least.

    7. RRRonda Rousey21:16

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett21:17

       What impact did that have on you?

    9. RRRonda Rousey21:19

       It was tough. It was hard. I remember being homesick a lot. Um, I was really isolating, you know. I, uh... All I did was train all day. There wasn't any other kids my age. I was always around people older than me. Um, you know, part of being, like, a sport prodigy is no one your age is on your level, you know, so I was always training with people older. I also, at the same time, felt like I was in the middle of my montage to do something, like, amazing, you know. My, um... I thought I was gonna shock the world and be the first American to win the gold medal in judo at 17. And so, you know, it was worth it to me.

11. 21:55 – 24:33

    Her Struggles With Bulimia

    1. SBSteven Bartlett21:55

       And at this time, you're 16. You're... You have your first experience with what we call bulimia. And you talk about this in the book, where, because of the pressure for you to make weight almost every week, you struggled with bulimia for the first time. Can you... What do I need to understand about that? Because I, I don't understand what bulimia is in, in my... in full, full entirety, but I also don't understand the circumstances that would lead a 16-year-old to make decisions to... that would be categorized as bulimic.

    2. RRRonda Rousey22:29

       Um, well, basically, I had to be a weight on a deadline very often, and it's not really a weight that I could healthily stay at, and so I would have to cut weight to get there. And, um, I just... It started to give me, like, a really unhealthy relationship with food, where I would, like, hoard food while I was cutting weight, like candy bars and stuff like that, and then after I made weight, I would, like, gorge myself on it. Like, I didn't know anything. I didn't have any, um, resources to help me out with it. And so, uh, it just kinda spiraled into a disorder.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett23:06

       And that disorder would mean, um, throwing up your food after you'd eaten it on occasion?

    4. RRRonda Rousey23:11

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. I remember the first time I did it was, uh... I had, like, a childhood coach or something took me out one day, and he, like, uh, basically, like, forced me to have a chocolate shake. And he was like, "No, you gotta have a chocolate shake. Come on, it's fine. You train all the time. You need to relax and you can have a chocolate shake." And I felt, like, so guilty about the chocolate shake that I... And I had to be, like... make weight or something, like, that weekend or something. And I was, "There's no way I would be able to make it." And so, like, uh, I made myself throw up the chocolate shake, and it was actually like... It was, it was cold. It didn't hurt. It wasn't that bad, you know? And I was like, "Oh, well, this... That wasn't even that terrible." And so, uh, I thought it was, like, a one-time thing. But the next time I, like, ate too much and I felt, like, really guilty about it, it just became like, you know, the panic button of if I ate too much and I had a, a deadline coming up where I had to be a certain weight. I felt like it was the only thing I could do. And I was a little girl that was growing, you know. I, like, grew four inches and, like, doubled my weight in a short period of time. And so I just couldn't stay at a lower weight. So, um... But you have all this outside pressure to be able to maintain the sa- same weight, even though as an athlete, you're growing and putting on muscle and even getting taller.... so it was kind of like fighting nature.

12. 24:33 – 25:49

    Getting Bullied for Her Physique

    1. RRRonda Rousey24:33

    2. SBSteven Bartlett24:33

       I read in your book that they called you Miss Man.

    3. RRRonda Rousey24:36

       (laughs) Yeah, in, in school. It wasn't cool for, you know, little girls to be muscular back then, and so, uh, before I dropped out at 16, you know, I, uh, I was really muscular, and, um, people would, like, grab up my arms and make fun of me all the time to the point that I would just kind of, like, uh, I would wear a zip-up hoodie all the time no matter how hot it was. I'd always try to, like, cover up my arms with how muscular I was, which is one reason why when I got older that trying to, like, fight that s- that, uh, idea that being muscular was masculine was something that became important to me, because that, you know... If you were a teenage girl in the early 2000s... (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett25:18

       Hmm.

    5. RRRonda Rousey25:19

       It was a, a pretty unhealthy standard that was presented to us, so yeah. I, uh, I didn't fit the, the very narrow scope of what was considered attractive at that time, and, um, and now it's like, uh, considered, like, really cool for, you know, women to sh- have muscles. Now all of the model- models have, like, stomach definition and stuff like that, and, like, are doing boxing and all this stuff and want to look toned. But, um, that, that wasn't the case back in ... uh, that wasn't the case back then. That was something that I got teased for a lot.

13. 25:49 – 26:30

    Ronda Competing in the Beijing Olympics

    1. RRRonda Rousey25:49

    2. SBSteven Bartlett25:49

       By 18, you leave home, and you go off to, um... You, you leave home, as you say, because you felt like you wanted to have some control over your life, um, and I think you were on route to the Olympics at this point. You were thinking about Ly- uh, going to the Olympics. At 21 years old, you actually competed in the Beijing Olympics and were the first American woman to get an Olympic medal, and then what I found really shocking is that you made $6,000 from, from winning that medal at the Olympics.

    3. RRRonda Rousey26:17

       Yeah, after I got taxed on it.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett26:19

       After you got taxed on it?

    5. RRRonda Rousey26:19

       It was 10, $10,000 and then got taxed on it. I actually bitched about it so much in the media when I was doing MMA that they got rid of that tax, but still you would only get $10,000.

14. 26:30 – 27:01

    Lack of Pay

    1. RRRonda Rousey26:30

    2. SBSteven Bartlett26:30

       Is there, like, a bit of a through line in your story that starts very young about this idea of, um, the importance of validation and respect from other people, this kind of bit of a chip on your shoulder that was driving you?

    3. RRRonda Rousey26:42

       Yeah, I think it, it started out as something that drove me, and then it ended up being something that held me back that I had to kind of shake myself from, but, you know, I also benefited greatly from it. So, I'm not saying I regret anything, but I know that it wasn't, like, a sustainable model for me to, you know, be happy in the long run.

15. 27:01 – 29:32

    Our Dark Side Becomes The Driver Of Our Success

    1. RRRonda Rousey27:01

    2. SBSteven Bartlett27:01

       'Cause I spoke to Tim Grover, who trained LeBron and, um, Kobe, and he said the same thing to me. He said, you know, when he's talking about Kobe and all those years training him to, to be a champion, that our dark side and our light, light side are interconnected. When he's talking about our dark side, he's basically saying, like, the trauma, the, the difficult things about us, the things that we would probably keep in the shadow if we could, um, they end up creating the greatness that we see on our screens. And it's like you can't separate out the two. You can't just have this person and not this person, unfortunately, but, like, he, he makes the case to me that we all have a dark side, and unfortunately, it's, it, as I say, it's responsible for our, our light side. And I, I see that throughout your story, this sort of journey to understanding that part of you and, as you say in your book, like, liberating yourself from it, um, which is really interesting 'cause I feel like I've been through the s- tr- trying to been, I've been trying to do the same thing in my life. I've been trying to take back the control of some of it, because it, as you said there, it can lead you to the top of the mountain, and then it can sometimes bring you down the other side, or it can m- make you miserable at the top of the mountain.

    3. RRRonda Rousey28:04

       I think I had to get to the top of several mountains to realize that, like, mm, the mountain climbing, uh, wasn't really gonna-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett28:12

       (laughs)

    5. RRRonda Rousey28:13

       ... be what made me happy, and I had this idea that if I, like, if I collected or hoarded achievements that somehow, well, someday, they would all add up to happiness, that I would be able to, like, "I did this thing, so now I could be happy forever." Like, my idea was, "If I am, like, the first American to win the Olympics in judo, then I will be happy for the rest of my life," and it's not... It, it, it didn't really work like that. Like, I could, yeah, achieve these great things, and they would make me happy for a time, but your life goes on past that. And so I kind of had to, um, figure out after hoarding all these bucket list experiences that, um, that I would actually end up just forgetting at times. Like, someone had to remind me the other day, "Remember when you flew the Thunderbirds?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah." (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett28:59

       (laughs)

    7. RRRonda Rousey28:59

       And, and then, and then they didn't equate to, to the actual happiness, and I had to, um... I, I thought that if I, like, could make my past into something that I'd, I'd done all these great things, that it would, it would dictate my future. But I had to kind of figure out that, like, making myself happy with every day that I'm winning ... that, that I'm living individually is what I needed to do, and there's no amount of accomplishments that you can, like, add to, you know, your, your trophy shelf that are going to equate to being happy forever in the future. It just, it just isn't possible.

16. 29:32 – 36:15

    How Her Concussions Affected Her Career

    1. SBSteven Bartlett29:32

       And it sounds like you were, you were living with a bit of a secret throughout your sort of early MMA career in the fact that you had what appeared to be a bit of a concussion-based brain injury of sorts, because in your book you talk about how you realized that in inspiring, if someone hit you pretty hard in the head, you'd end up seeing stars.

    2. RRRonda Rousey29:51

       Yeah, I mean, uh, people didn't really know about CTE back when I was doing judo, and, um, I would get concussions all the time and just be told that, you know, "Hey, I'm... My head hurts. I have photovision." I would say it, like, stuff like that, and they'd be like, "Just stop being a pussy and, like, keep training," and so, um, I would get, you know, dozens, dozens of concussions and never be allowed to stop, and I would have to keep training through them, and the sy- symptoms would persist for weeks to the point that I was experiencing concussion symptoms more often than I wasn't for a 10-year judo career. I mean, that's......the kind of thing that, like, you know, (laughs) leads to CTE. All these football players that we were- we were dealing with were having concussions repeatedly and not being allowed to rest. And so, by the time I got into MMA, like, this is the kind of injury that accumulates over time. You don't, you know... It- it doesn't go away. Every time you get a concussion, it's easier to get another one. And so, by the time I got into MMA, I, um, it was really easy for me to con- to get concussion symptoms and, um, I'd- I'd rested for a couple years, you know? So at first it- it wasn't so bad, but it- it just got worse and worse and worse with time. Even if I'm winning a fight and, you know, 14 seconds and the other person doesn't touch me, there's, uh, 50 rounds of sparring that went into that training camp. And you're wearing, like, a headgear and gloves which are meant to protect you cosmetically, but these gloves are 14 ounces and you're wearing this headgear, so, like, your brain is, you know, suspended in fluid. The- the larger the thing is, like if it's 14 ounces, it's easier, actually, to give you a concussion, um, when you're sparring. And it's the kind of thing that I just didn't want to, like, say anything about, you know? I didn't want... And I didn't want to address it myself or any kind of weakness in myself, and I just kept telling myself that I, you know, I just have to be perfect and not allow these people to touch me. I had to create this fighting style that's so efficient that I don't take any damage. And, um, it got to a point where I fought Sara McMann and she barely tapped me and I obviously had a concussion afterward. I couldn't bear to look at the lights. I had to have everyone turn the lights off. And, um, I was looking for a way out, you know, because I know I couldn't sustain that forever. Um, but yeah, it's got to... It got to the point where if I got, like, tapped at all, um, with the... You know, um... (laughs) At this point, S- Stephanie McMahon slapped me and gave me a concussion, you know? And, uh, the, you know... A woman and... That has never been a fighter in her life and even, you know, is, uh, past her slapping prime, if she can slap me across the face and give me a concussion, you know, I shouldn't be fighting anymore.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett32:49

       Did you keep this a secret?

    4. RRRonda Rousey32:50

       I had to keep it a secret from everybody, um, my coaches, Dana. Even, like, myself, I just didn't want to face- face up to it. I just thought that I could keep it going forever. And so, that, like, I think was the most frustrating thing to me, that, like, in my, uh, my first loss, I got tapped in the beginning and I'd fallen down the stairs a week or so, like, maybe a week or so before that, knocked myself out falling down the stairs at my house, and then didn't say anything and went into the fight anyway, had a horrible weight cut, had the wrong mouth guard with the... Which didn't have the- the protection on the back of the bottom teeth. So, the first time she taps me, my teeth get knocked loose and I'm out on my feet. Like, when I say out on my feet, it means that, like- like, I have no s- I have no depth per- depth perception, basically, and I'm at a very limited capacity of what my brain can, um... The- the information that it could give me. And so, I knew that if she knew that I was hurt, I wouldn't be able to defend myself. And so I had to keep coming forward without knowing how far away she was and not being fully, you know, hold of my facilities just to keep the- the fight going, hoping that I would recover, but I just couldn't. And so I think that- that's one of the things that really du- like, dug at me for so long, that so many people were, like, saying, like, "Oh, Ronda's game plan was bad," or whatever, this. And, like, they didn't know that, like, I wasn't, like, present. I was, like, just trying to survive. I couldn't see how far away she was. I, um... It wasn't like that was my game plan or- or anything like that. I was, like, completely disabled and, uh, when I tried to fight again and I was like, "Okay, I can give myself a break and I'll make sure the mouth guard's perfect, and this time I'm not gonna knock myself out right before the fight," and all those things, and then the same thing, I just got tapped and I was- I was out, you know? Even if I was out on my feet, I was out. So, I just, like, just didn't have the hardware to continue fighting. And a lot of people would say, like, "Oh, you're a fucking quitter," or, "You're this, this, or that." Um, and then it's really difficult because I'd never had- been more skilled as a fighter, I'd never been better in my life, but I just, you know... I just neurologically wasn't capable of continuing at- to fight at that level. And I couldn't say anything about it then because I wanted to go and do pro wrestling, and they already had their own controversy that they had to deal with, with, uh, wrestlers having, you know, CTE and all kinds of damage from concussions. And so, it was such a volatile subject that I just... I couldn't say anything about it and I couldn't say anything about it leading into my- my- my last fight because then I'd be basically telling the other person that, um, you know, they're putting a target on my head literally, so.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett35:47

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RRRonda Rousey35:48

       I just had to stay silent about it for years and let people make their- their own assumptions about me. And, um, you know, it was- it was tough because, like, in some ways, like, I've never been better as a fighter, I've never had a better grasp of everything than I ever had. I'd never been faster, stronger, everything else. But, you know, you only have so many hits that you can take, and unfortunately I took the vast majority of them as a kid doing judo.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett36:14

       I

17. 36:15 – 37:43

    Defeating People in 60 Seconds

    1. SBSteven Bartlett36:15

       want to make sure I completely u- understand the context of the... What it's like to get a concussion and to live with a co- concussion that ends up compounding to make it e- even more sensitive. You- you- s- you take those big hits when you're younger, they- they ask you to fight through the concussion. By the time you're in the UFC, you've developed this incredible style where you basically get people out of there instantly. I mean, in the... Leading up to your fight with, uh, Amanda Holmes, I think... I remember the commentator saying at the time that you had knocked or you'd submitted everyone within sort of 30 seconds.... of the fight starting. So your, your style had kind of adapted to become, "I'm gonna get this person out of there immediately."

    2. RRRonda Rousey36:51

       That, yeah, that wasn't an accident. That was the goal. (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett36:54

       That was the goal?

    4. RRRonda Rousey36:55

       The goal was I had to be able to finish the person off immediately because that was the only way that I could fight is to not take any damage.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett37:02

       Because if they had hit you in the head at that point, there was a risk that you w- you would get a concussion, and you were aware of that risk, but your coaches weren't.

    6. RRRonda Rousey37:10

       No.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett37:11

       Were any of your coaches aware of it?

    8. RRRonda Rousey37:13

       No.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett37:14

       Was Edmund aware of it, your striking coach?

    10. RRRonda Rousey37:16

        Nobody. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't... It was one of those things. I just didn't wanna, like, face up to the- to having any weakness in myself, and also, like, like, Edmund would've made me stop. I didn't wanna stop. Uh, I didn't want anyone to be making that decision for me. I didn't want to tell the, the company that I was having neurological symptoms 'cause then they wouldn't let me continue to fight. I didn't want those decisions to be taken out of my hands.

18. 37:43 – 39:56

    Having Very Strict/Abusive Coaches

    1. RRRonda Rousey37:44

    2. SBSteven Bartlett37:44

       In your book, you talk about the relationship you had with Edmund, and it wasn't always great in terms of his approach to coaching. You talk about how he would physically strike you during training, but more- potentially even more severely, he would emotionally abuse you during training.

    3. RRRonda Rousey38:01

       I mean, honestly, I can't, uh, think of a single coach that I had, like, a great, like a, like a great relationship with. Like, this is, like, a lot of the coaches were of that, like, Bela Karolyi kind of generation of, like, they thought that being abusive to the athletes is what gave them the best results, and that was kind of what was, like, en vogue at the time. So, um, and, like, that- as an athlete, you're just kind of like, "All right. Well, this is what I have to deal with in, in order to be a- the best." And especially with, like, these, these sports where you have no other choice. Like, this is the national team coach, and you have to get their approval and put up with their shit to be able to, to fight at this level. And so, like, Edmund was, I think, (laughs) not as bad as previous coaches. So that's why I, um, put up with a lot 'cause I felt like I at least had a say that I could, I could talk back. The, the other coaches would just, you know, um... Like, Little Jimmy, my first coach, literally, like, dislocated my jaw as I was a little kid. I threw it once in front of everybody and, and laughed because I thought it was awesome, and he threw me on the benches, on top of the table at everybody else's feet in front of all these people. And, uh, you know, Big Jim had, like, grabbed me by the throat before to, like, drive his point home that women can't defend themselves. And so this is stuff- like, behavior that I'd been conditioned to tolerate since I was, like, a little girl. And, um, Edmund was of that same, like, Eastern European kind of, like, school of thought of, like, you have to be, like, really tough and- in order to bring the best out of people, and, um...

    4. SBSteven Bartlett39:55

       What does that

19. 39:56 – 42:53

    How Did It Impact You?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett39:56

       do to your emotions though? Because we develop at, you know, at the age when most of us are developing our emotions. You're having yours suppressed, and you're being made into this really, quote-unquote, "tough" person.

    2. RRRonda Rousey40:08

       I think it kinda taught me from a young age to just, like... How to de- de- diffuse, like, coaches that were, like, getting out of hand and to not... 'Cause if I stu- stood up for myself, it would just make it worse. And so, it just kind of, like, taught me to, like, "Okay, I gotta, like, get this person in a good mood all the time," or I had to, like, butter them up, or I have to, like, strategically find my way to, like, out, out of being berated or something like that. And so, um, I think it's not so much one individual that's a huge problem. I think, like, the whole system is the problem, and that it, it really reinforces these, like, in- these power imbalances that are, um, inevitably taken advantage of, that all these coaches have free rein of their little, their little fiefdoms. And, um, lot, lot of these athletes don't have any other option, and so, like, I don't see how... Like, in school, you can have, like, a teacher. Someone comes in to watch the teacher teach to grade them on their teaching. Like-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett41:16

       (laughs)

    4. RRRonda Rousey41:16

       ... nobody does this for coaching, and you know, so I would hear these stories about, like, these sumo coaches that, like, would kill their athletes training them, and I'd be like, "Yeah, you know, I could see how that could happen." And (laughs) it's just- it's- it's not one person. It's not one sport. It's everywhere. And there's, like- I can't say that I have all the answers for it, but I can say that, like, coaching in general creates a really, like, unhealthy power, like, im- imbalance, that what I was able... How I was able to take my relationship with my coach Edmund and take it from off the rails back on track is to have very distinct boundaries, you know? A lot of times, your coach is someone that you're, you know, is tough on you, but they're also, like, they care about you. They're a parent. They're a brother. They're, they're a coach too, but a lot of times i- uh, it becomes, like, an overbearing family member and a coach, and you can't be both. That's why my mom didn't want to be my coach. She didn't want to have to be my mom and my coach because being both of those at the same time is inevitably unhealthy. And, um, when we put boundaries in place of like, "Okay, this is what your job is, and you do not do anything outside of that," then, you know, I- training was better than ever. Our relationship was better than ever, but I think, like, a lot of these lines and these boundaries get blurred, and they need to be very, you know, very defined in order for, for it to work out.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett42:52

       And how

20. 42:53 – 47:34

    Coaches Crossing the Line...

    1. SBSteven Bartlett42:53

       were those lines blurred with your coach?

    2. RRRonda Rousey42:55

       Um...

    3. SBSteven Bartlett42:56

       Just, just, is, he was crossing them in terms of the things he was able to say and do?

    4. RRRonda Rousey43:01

       Yeah. I mean, a lot of it was, like, he just wanted to know where I was all the time, and, um, like, I needed to be constantly available and- and stuff like that, and, uh, or else it would, like, end up turning into, like, a big argument or something like that, and I would just end up just trying to, like, do anything I could to not get in an argument. And, um, but yeah. Like, I had to, like, make a rule at one point. I was like, "You're not allowed to FaceTime me 'cause I don't want you to just FaceTime me and know where I am at all times and what I'm doing 'cause, like, it's my fucking business. It's my privacy." And it was just he was always trying to push that boundary, um, and I was always pushing back and stuff like that, and, um... But I was like... I don't know. I- I- a lot of times, I'd be like, I'd be like, "I just wanna train," like I don't... I would be just t- trying to, like, placate him because if I, like, just stopped talking to him and ended an argument, then it would end up leaking into training the next day, and so it just became, like, really, like, taxing of, like, my- my energy in- in general. But like, I mean, I can't really think of a single, like, coach relationship that I- that I had that was, like, perfect.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett44:12

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RRRonda Rousey44:12

       But it worked, you know? That's the one problem that I had always had, like, debating. I'm like, "Well, it's working. I'm getting better," and so you would just put up with it because there's- there was no perfect option out there.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett44:23

       You said at the very start that you were very, very close to your father, and then when your father passed, these other men that almost take on s- s- what someone could liken to a fatherly role are all coaches.

    8. RRRonda Rousey44:34

       Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, they were all like, uh... What was it in- in Kill Bill that he was talking about? Uh, he had- that Bill lost his father early so he collected father figures? (laughs)

    9. SBSteven Bartlett44:46

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    10. RRRonda Rousey44:46

        Yeah. (laughs) I collected them. Um, none of them were as good as the original. (laughs)

    11. SBSteven Bartlett44:50

        Mm-hmm.

    12. RRRonda Rousey44:51

        But yeah. I think that that constant need for, you know, um, validation from a father figure was something that I was constantly, like, pursuing. But, um, you know, that, like, that philosophy of coaching, of, you know... You see, like the, like the Russian figure skaters, the gymnists-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett45:10

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    14. RRRonda Rousey45:10

        ... that never smile because they've been, like, beaten into iron by... That was basically the philosophy of all the coaches that I had. They would see someone like Bela Karolyi and be like, "Oh my God," like, he was their idol, and so they're all trying to, like, emulate that.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett45:22

        Beating the emotion out of you?

    16. RRRonda Rousey45:24

        (laughs)

    17. SBSteven Bartlett45:25

        This is something that I- that I've always wondered about you because you- you've always had a steely, um, exterior, you know?

    18. RRRonda Rousey45:33

        Really? (laughs)

    19. SBSteven Bartlett45:33

        No, you have. It- especially when- in the- in the fight- in the UFC days. I- I watched some of you- your clips to remind myself of your fighting days before this, and, you know, that you- you came in with that face, that argh, that face.

    20. RRRonda Rousey45:42

        Mm-hmm. (laughs)

    21. SBSteven Bartlett45:43

        And, um, just in interviews around that time and so on, and this is why I asked the question about emotion and how has... Because you got into this at such a young age and you're dealing with these men who call you w- you know, you're lack- lacking discipline if you miss weight and all of these kinds of things.

    22. RRRonda Rousey45:57

        Mm-hmm.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett45:57

        Um, you go through that- the loss of your father, the unprocessed grief. I'm wondering what happens to Ronda Rousey's relationship with her own emotions.

    24. RRRonda Rousey46:05

        I mean, I also was really emotional, actually, as a fighter. I would cry on the mat all the time. All the time. I would- I cried on the mat, like, every practice for years straight, and I would be yelled at for crying. (laughs)

    25. SBSteven Bartlett46:15

        You'd get yelled at for crying?

    26. RRRonda Rousey46:16

        I'd get yelled at for crying. So I'd cry and then I would cry because I was crying and I would cry because I was being yelled at for crying. And, um, yeah. I just, uh... But it wouldn't be because something hurt. It would be because, you know, something- I was frustrated by something. I couldn't- I got thrown or I couldn't make something work that I was trying to make work and I would cry out of frustration and... My, uh, mom said I had a tournament where it was full double elimination so I ended up winning the tournament, but I lost a match earlier in the day, and every single match, I would come out crying, bow win, throw the other girl on her ass, beat her, bow out crying, come into the next match still crying, beat the shit out of the other girl, bow out crying, the whole day crying until I beat everybody, beat the same girl that beat me twice in order to win, on top of the podium, number one crying still because I lost that first match earlier in the day. And so, yeah. I was always very emotional. (laughs)

    27. SBSteven Bartlett47:09

        Wow.

    28. RRRonda Rousey47:09

        I was extremely emotional as a fighter and in training and everything like that, and that was something I was constantly trying to, like, battle, is to, like... If you get thrown in a tournament, don't start crying because that was just something that would happen to me all the time. I'm very... Yeah. And that- it's just so funny to people who think that I'm, like, yeah, this emotionalless robot whenever I fight. That it took a long time to- to be able to get there and to stop, like, crying in the middle of a match. (laughs)

    29. SBSteven Bartlett47:33

        Wow.

21. 47:34 – 48:55

    What Dana White Said About Ronda

    1. SBSteven Bartlett47:34

    2. RRRonda Rousey47:34

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett47:35

       Dana says he's never gonna allow women into the UFC to fight, but then Dana changes his mind, and he changes his mind because of you, effectively. So in September 2012, I remember the- I remember it very fondly, I remember where I was when I watched the first, um, woman fight in the UFC. Dana says that he's signing the first ever woman fighter in the UFC, a lady called Ronda Rousey, um, despite saying a year earlier that he wouldn't, but he called you a game changer, and so you did end- end up changing the game and you became UFC champion between 2020 12 and 2015. You won 15 fights back-to-back, most of them finished within seconds, and you stacked up a bunch of records, including the fastest ever win, fastest submission, fastest title defense turnaround, and you were voted the best female athlete of all time in a 2015 ESPN fan poll, and Fox Sports called you "one of the defining athletes of the 21st century." Part of that sort of 15 fights back-to-back was... You know, when I think about that period, it's the amount of times you were fighting was really unusual. You were fighting- I think it was sometimes you were fighting three times in nine months, which is kind of unheard of for anyone in the UFC. I mean, there's fighters today that seem to just fight once a year.

    4. RRRonda Rousey48:51

       (laughs)

    5. SBSteven Bartlett48:52

       Why were you doing that? Why were you fighting so frequently?

    6. RRRonda Rousey48:54

       ...

22. 48:55 – 50:15

    Why Were You Fighting So Frequently?

    1. RRRonda Rousey48:55

       I was fighting that frequently because that's how often Dana called. (laughs)

    2. SBSteven Bartlett48:58

       (laughs)

    3. RRRonda Rousey48:58

       And I told him that, you know, "If you sign me, I will be there to fight whenever you need me." And I never said no. And so, any time that I got a h- an offer, or any time one of the guys got hurt or fell out, I was always the one that would fill in and, um, you know, if there was like a... (laughs) I always fought on like, uh, Phe- like Februarys and Augusts and Novembers, like the worst times of the years to fight because that's when they needed somebody to come in and pick up the numbers. So, I wasn't somebody like holding out to only fight on the 4th of July card or New Year's card, which are the best, you know, viewer, um, the highest viewed of the year. I, um, I would do whatever was best for the company because that's what I promised the role that I would fulfill. That was like the deal that I made when I came in and, um, you know, nobody else has to do that. But I felt like I, I owed it to Dana. I, I, I promised him I would be there e- anytime that he needed me and I was.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett49:55

       If you could go back and give yourself advice on that day when you signed your UFC contract now...

    5. RRRonda Rousey50:00

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett50:01

       ... if you could time travel back to that Ronda and give her a little bit of advice, whisper in her ear, what would you say?

    7. RRRonda Rousey50:05

       I wouldn't change anything.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett50:06

       You wouldn't change anything?

    9. RRRonda Rousey50:07

       Time travel's not possible and I led myself to where I am now and I'm happy with where I'm at. So I wouldn't fuck with it.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett50:13

        When you got the

23. 50:15 – 50:33

    Being The First Woman to Appear on the UFC

    1. SBSteven Bartlett50:15

       news that you were gonna be signing for the UFC as the first ever woman to fight in the UFC, how did, how did that feel?

    2. RRRonda Rousey50:22

       Um, validating (laughs) .

    3. SBSteven Bartlett50:24

       Really?

    4. RRRonda Rousey50:25

       Yeah. No, I was just really excited. I just felt like I was let on a secret that the whole world didn't know-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett50:30

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RRRonda Rousey50:30

       ... and, uh, they were just starting to find out.

24. 50:33 – 51:14

    The New Jackie Chang

    1. SBSteven Bartlett50:33

       And throughout that period while you're the UFC champion, you take up acting and you, you feature in a couple of films like The Fast And The Furious, The Expendables, et cetera. Was that something that you always had planned or is that something that just arose as an opportunity?

    2. RRRonda Rousey50:45

       Uh, the movie stuff just kind of arose as an opportunity, um, but, you know, once it became a possibility, I was like, "Of course, I could be the next Bruce Lee," you know?

    3. SBSteven Bartlett50:56

       (laughs)

    4. RRRonda Rousey50:56

       Of course, I can do great at this and, um, uh, I felt like I was as good, like, performer and, you know, great physical performer as well. And I could combine the two in a way that nobody else could. So, I went after it with the same kind of confidence I went after everything.

25. 51:14 – 54:40

    UFC 193 Ronda Vs Holly Holm

    1. RRRonda Rousey51:14

    2. SBSteven Bartlett51:14

       On the 14th of November 2015, you had UFC 193 where you lined up to fight Holly Holmes in Melbourne, Australia. I remember where I was when that fight happened. I d- I didn't miss many UFC fights and I still don't miss many. But it was a, a really sort of, um, a huge turning point for a number of reasons. You were indestructible, basically. That's how, uh, the whole UFC community and I think the fan base saw you. But in that moment, as you said earlier on, there was an initial contact, and I watched the clip again earlier on, there's an initial contact, I think it was with, um, Holly Holm's elbow if I'm, if I can't remember, if I remember correctly. And then, you talked about having this sort of issue with dep- death percep- depth perception because of that initial contact and that's actually what I see in that clip. I see from that first sort of strike that there is an issue with kind of understanding where, where, um, Ho- Holly is and that fight ends in a head kick. From that moment when you leave the o- the octagon, how does, how does your life and perception of everything change? Because it's interesting, the way that you were built up to that, you were at the, I was gonna say the top of the mountain, you're up in the clouds at that point. Like it was, it was framed to everyone that you were fundamentally indestructible, you know? And that's kind of what the, the marketing machine does, it does to everyone. They're fundamentally ind- indestructible but everyone whether from Moham- Muhammad Ali to my friend, Israel, um, in the UFC, everyone has their day where we find out that everyone is a human being to some degree. From the moment you leave the UFC, what is life like from that po- point onwards when you get back into the medical room?

    3. RRRonda Rousey52:48

       Um, extremely depressing. (laughs) You know, that was my whole identity is, uh, uh, being champion and undefeated and, um, it's just like soul crushing. It really was. It was, I was just kinda like forced to face the music before I was ready to. And I knew that, um, it was gonna catch up to me at some point. But I was more, I think, upset that there were so many people out there that were like reveling in it. And, um, and I don't know, it just felt so like unjust in a way 'cause I just felt like it was just, there's so much of it just wasn't my fault, you know? I just couldn't, like, my brain just couldn't take what I asked of it anymore. And, and my body took as much as it could until it literally broke and I gave everybody everything that I had. And, um, and that wasn't enough for them. They, they, they hated me for not having more. So, I mean, it was tough. It was, um, I saw a whole bunch of people that I thought were friends just, you know, turn on me. And, um, it, it was, uh, really eye-opening in a way though, you know? The, who tr- who are true, who, to who true friends are and what is, what true happiness is and that outward validation wasn't it. And so, I think maybe it might have saved me in a way from going down the path of trying to like chase that high of everybody's, you know, approval forever. But, um, so I guess it was liberating in a way in the long run.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett54:39

       If I was

26. 54:40 – 58:14

    How Did You Feel After Losing?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett54:40

       a fly on the wall that night when you left that octagon, what would I have seen?

    2. RRRonda Rousey54:44

       A lot of crying. (laughs) You know? Um, uh, I had to get my lip sewed up, the, uh, muscle underneath and then the, the skin.I remember I was so out of it that I like bit off a chunk of my lip and spit it out like it was like a piece of chapped, like, you know, like a chapped lip. Like that's how out of it I was. I was biting and chewing, like spitting out chunks of like flesh from my lip. And people judging me for the decisions I was making while, while in that state, I think is what bothered me the most. It wasn't so much that I lost, it was just that people thought that I didn't know how to fight. (laughs) And, um, you know, if I was at my full capacity, I don't think anyone could ever beat me, but I just, you know, I was spent. I, I was running on fumes for so long that I didn't have any fumes left, and, um, and the moment that I ran out of fumes was, um, you know, broadcast live to billions of people everywhere who all had their own assumptions about it and none, none of them are right. And I felt like I couldn't speak up or say anything and honestly, like, uh, whoever I tried to talk to, they didn't care about, um, helping me communicate what I was trying to communicate. They just cared about getting as many clicks as possible, so I couldn't trust anyone to speak through, so I feel like this book was the only way that I could really communicate everything that I'd been holding onto for years, because, I mean... Yeah. It was really tough, but I literally fought until I couldn't fight anymore. And maybe that's not enough for a lot of people, but I feel like I created the most efficient fighting style that ever created. That, that was ... that's ever existed. And, um, I had to realize that only people that are truly re- great can recognize greatness. I wanted to be so great that only, that even an idiot couldn't, um, deny it. But, um, but then I realized after going into pro wrestling that retiring undefeated and taking the equity that I had with me wouldn't have been what was best for the sport, even though I know that I'm better than all these girls and by a fucking long shot and I o- always will be. Taking my equity away from me so that everybody is sh- knows that wouldn't, would actually tarnish my legacy. It wouldn't make everybody take the w- the women after me seriously. And so it, it had to happen for the, for, you know, the be- the betterment of the sport. But, you know, sometimes it's, uh, it still stings a little bit that it's, you know, I'm not recognized as the greatest ever when I know I am. But my mom said all the time, really quite ... yeah, this picture here ... that she didn't care if everybody knew she was the best in the world. She only cared if she knew. She didn't care if, that nobody knew who was the first American World Champion of Judo back in 1984. It was important to her. And, um, I think like somewhere along the way, um, I, it started to matter more what other people thought than what I thought. And so, um, I think being, being forced back to, to that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me.

27. 58:14 – 1:00:15

    Suicidal Thoughts

    1. SBSteven Bartlett58:14

       I don't think people realize the extent of ... they see it as kind of just a game. Uh, you know, the fighting they see it as some kind of game that they're watching like they're playing on their Xbox or PlayStation. But I don't think they understand the extent of the devastation on a human level that you kind of experience after that loss, and I think until you did that interview with Ellen where you revealed that you'd gone back to your changing room and you had these sort of, this sort of suicidal ideation about the future, most people didn't realize the extent of it until then. It w- did you literally have suicidal ideation in the days and hours following the fight?

    2. RRRonda Rousey58:52

       No, it was basically like instantly when I came backstage. Uh, but, you know, um, suicide is the kind of thing that becomes more prevalent if, you know, it's in your family, and I've literally had two generations of suicide ahead of me. It's just something that, um, it's always a, like, uh, an option in your mind once it's shown to you, you know. Um, but I think that the fact that I was with Trav then, my husband now, that I just didn't want to like take the pain that I had in me and give it to him, because that's what, how I experienced suicide was like, okay, it's, you get to relieve yourself of that pain, but you have to, you pass it onto everybody else. And, um, my, my, you know, but my dad was dying anyway. He wouldn't have been able to prevent his, his death, and he was, you know, physically suffering every day, and so that, so I understand that. And, um, I didn't feel like I had that, the same kind of justification that I wasn't going to die anyway, so, um, I was gonna, gonna live for him and for my family so that they wouldn't have to, to, to take the pain that I was feeling onto them.

28. 1:00:15 – 1:03:13

    Ronda's Last Fight in the UFC

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:15

       Was that the hardest moment in your professional career?

    2. RRRonda Rousey1:00:19

       Professionally? Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:21

       Was it the hardest moment in your personal life?

    4. RRRonda Rousey1:00:25

       No, losing my dad was worse.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:28

       You went on to fight Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 in 2016 and th- the fight, um, ends again, and after this, y- you come to the decision that your time at the UFC is over, and you decide to, to move on to the WWE. There's a sort of, a two-year gap I believe between, about a one-year gap between the Nunes fight and the WWE announcement. What happened in your life in that gap?

    6. RRRonda Rousey1:00:54

       Um, I was mostly just being sad. (laughs)

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:57

       (laughs)

    8. RRRonda Rousey1:00:57

       I was just like sad and high and playing video games and eating crepes. (laughs) I mean, everybody wants to rush you through grieving things, but, you know, I think it's important. And so, I took that time to myself. I was also just so worn out from, you know, like I said, running on fumes for years on end, and, like, literally dragging myself out of bed every morning and, like, having to dig deep every second of the day, that I just, you know, wanted to dig deep and just disappear. I had, you know, paparazzi and all kinds of crazy shit happening at the time, and I just, I just, like, didn't want to be famous anymore. (laughs) So, um, it was always more of a tool than a goal. And now that I didn't have fights to promote, I didn't need it anymore, but it- I guess it wasn't done with me, so I kind of had to, like, um, disappear for a while to be left alone.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:54

       Were you doing anything professionally during that period? Or were you just at home?

    10. RRRonda Rousey1:01:57

        Um, I mean, I, um... I don't know, just at home. I feel like I just needed to not give any more. I don't think anyone could understand how exhausted I was and how much had been asked of me for so long that I just needed to rest. I needed to mentally and physically rest. And, um... But people that have, you know, dug deep enough to make it to two Olympics and win 15 fights in a row, you know, not people- not a lot of people understand how much effort that it takes. And, um, it just sounds like numbers when you say it, but when you live it, it's just like, I literally had nothing left in me. I, like, could barely get out of bed. So, I mean, it's not the kind of, like, tired that you can take a long sleep from and wake up refreshed, you know? Like, I was, like, the kind of tired that takes, like, a year to recover from.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:59

        Is that- is that depression in your mind?

    12. RRRonda Rousey1:03:01

        I guess so. You could de- you could, you could call it depression. Um, but, you know, I didn't- I didn't see anyone and get diagnosed.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:11

        Your- your husband was there throughout that period with

29. 1:03:13 – 1:06:57

    Her Husband Support During Tough Times

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:13

       you?

    2. RRRonda Rousey1:03:13

       Yeah. He was there the whole time. He was the one supplying the crepes. (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:18

       (laughs)

    4. RRRonda Rousey1:03:20

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:20

       (laughs)

    6. RRRonda Rousey1:03:20

       He was amazing. He, he really was... you know, helped drag me out of my own hole. And I'm very much like, you know, like, a Gollum cave creature in general. Like, I just will, like-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:32

       (laughs)

    8. RRRonda Rousey1:03:33

       ... not-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:33

       Come on.

    10. RRRonda Rousey1:03:34

        ... not leave my, my little den. Um, but he's, like, very much a social butterfly and he would make sure that, like, "Okay, you need to go out and interact with human beings."

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:43

        (laughs)

    12. RRRonda Rousey1:03:43

        And I'm like, "No!" Which, you know, is, always kind of been how I was. I always struggled socially and stuff like that, um, which is why I got into judo was to be able to, like, socialize and just be able to talk and communicate. And so, um, I just kind of reverted back to, like, my- my hermit tendencies.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:03

        (laughs)

    14. RRRonda Rousey1:04:03

        And yeah, Trav literally had to, like, drag me out of my hole. And, um, I'm glad he did. But, um, yeah, I would easily slide, slide back into the Misty Mountains anytime (laughs) I was allowed.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:16

        Did he understand what you were going through psychologically in that period? Were you able to communicate it to him?

    16. RRRonda Rousey1:04:20

        Um, I think he understood to an extent. Like, he, uh, he had a different kind of incredible story where he started fighting at 26 and then was the number one contender in- at the UFC in- in as much time as it took me to be the number one contender in the UFC.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:36

        Mm-hmm.

    18. RRRonda Rousey1:04:36

        So, he was, like, incredibly and naturally talented, but he hadn't been, you know, um, pursuing a goal of athletic greatness since he was six, like, the way-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:46

        (laughs)

    20. RRRonda Rousey1:04:46

        ... that I had. And so, um, just the disappointment of, you know, never going- never winning an Olympic gold medal and never being able to retire undefeated and those kind of, like, lifelong goals. Um, I don't think a lot of people understand that. But he also was still, like, so supportive and there for me, you know? And he never got fed up with me moping around and literally crying over, like, eggs if I, like, split them, broke the yolk and be like-

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:14

        (laughs)

    22. RRRonda Rousey1:05:14

        ... "I can't eat my egg. You eggs!" You know? And, like, just being like that for, like, yeah, over a year and stuff. And his, like... he's just such incredible love and patience and was just, like, there for me all the time and just, like, bring me in and hold me when I needed it. Even if he didn't, like, understand why I was so sad, he was, like, there for it anyway. So yeah, he's the best thing that ever happened to me. I love him so much. But yeah, he might not have understood it so much, but he was still there for me. Knew you were gonna get me at some point. Told you I'm emotional. (laughs)

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:55

        No, I- uh, no, it's... It's often in those moments, um, our hardest moments, that we realize, as you said earlier, who we've got around us, but also the value of certain people in our lives. I think in my hardest times in my life, that's- that's- following those times is when I realized who really, really mattered. And my partner in particular, through my hardest moments, I've- you go through the- the dark canyon of these tough times in life, and you emerge. That person walked through it with you, and you go, "Fucking hell, this person, now I understand how much they mean to me." Sometimes it takes that to understand what someone means to you. Um, and it certainly sounds like that moment crystallized what Travis means to you in your life as well.

    24. RRRonda Rousey1:06:37

        Yeah. I think when we first got together, we went through so much stuff that would have driven anybody else apart. But it really just brought us all- brought us- brought the two of us closer together. And I'm just so glad that we were with each other when we were going through the hardest times so we didn't have to go through it alone.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:55

        Where does the WWE come in?

30. 1:06:57 – 1:10:44

    When Did WWE Come In?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:57

       So, that's ultimately what sort of, I guess, pulled you out of your little cave there, but...

    2. RRRonda Rousey1:07:01

       (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:01

       (laughs)

    4. RRRonda Rousey1:07:02

       Yeah. I, uh, I had to get out of the cave and in front of, like, a crowd of thousands of people live, of course-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:08

       Yeah.

    6. RRRonda Rousey1:07:09

       ... which is really funny because I really don't like it. (laughs) I don't like being in front of crowds and a bunch of people and I hate public speaking. (laughs)

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:17

       (laughs)

    8. RRRonda Rousey1:07:18

       (laughs)

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:18

       (laughs)

    10. RRRonda Rousey1:07:18

        ... but I just love the stuff that I get to do while doing it, you know?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:22

        Mm-hmm.

    12. RRRonda Rousey1:07:24

        Um, but yeah, I just, like, kind of, my friends, uh, the Four Horsemen, Shayna and Jessamyn and Marina, they were, like, the friends that I made. I mean, I knew Marina back from judo and I met Shayna and Jessamyn through MMA, and, like, we really became, like, a really close-knit group. And, you know, for me, and for how hard it was for me to, like, socialize and make friends, like, these were, like-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:46

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RRRonda Rousey1:07:46

        ... my girls, you know? And they all started getting into pro wrestling, and, um, I just started doing it for fun. And, it was just so fun, and, like, it wasn't a competition. (laughs) It was everyone working together to try and do something great together. And so, it reminded me more of, like, you know, like, filming action movies and doing fight choreography, except for it was kind of like in its purest form, where you have to tell the story. Like, then you, in a movie, you have, like, the movie part, and then there's a fight, and then the story.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:16

        Mm-hmm.

    16. RRRonda Rousey1:08:16

        And, like, usually the fight is, like, separate from that. And I feel like pro wrestling is, like, the pu- the purest form of combat storytelling because you can only tell the story through the combat. And I was just fascinated with that, especially, you know, wanted to be Bruce Lee.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:29

        Hmm.

    18. RRRonda Rousey1:08:30

        And, um, and then it became that thing that, like, I started to fixate on, and wanted to be better and better at it, and just would, um, go into training and lose track of time and realize that I'd been going for five hours, kind of a thing. And, um, and I loved that feeling of being lost in something, uh, uh... (laughs) I told my friend, I was telling somebody the other day, like, passion is my passion.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:53

        (laughs)

    20. RRRonda Rousey1:08:53

        I just love to be passionate about things, and, you know, I guess that, uh, flow state is fun. (laughs)

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:59

        Mm-hmm.

    22. RRRonda Rousey1:08:59

        And I just love being in it. And, um, so, um, yeah, then I started just training for fun, and then, um, then, uh, ended up, you know, getting... I didn't really get an opportunity to go to WWE. I was kind of like, "Hey, guys, I wanna do this." (laughs)

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:17

        (laughs)

    24. RRRonda Rousey1:09:17

        And then they were like, "Okay." Um, and yeah, then it just kind of snowballed into... 'Cause at first I was like, "Okay, I want to have a baby soon, and l- it'd be kind of cool to go and do some pro wrestling for a couple months before I go and have my baby." And then it just kind of, like, snowballed into this whole beast and this whole, like, other life that I didn't know that, um, I was gonna have. But, it was very much like, like a calling, much more than a pursuit, if that makes sense, you know?

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:48

        Mm-hmm. Once upon a time if you had a business idea, it was exceptionally difficult to get going. But now, in the age of Shopify, it is exceptionally easy. As many of you will know, Shopify are a sponsor of this podcast. If you don't know Shopify, it's an exceptionally simple web platform for anybody that's got an idea that wants to transact on a global scale. So, things like these conversation cards which we sell, we sold using Shopify, and it only took us a couple of clicks to get going. So, why did we choose Shopify? For a number of reasons, but I think one of the big ones which goes unappreciated is their checkout system converts 36% better compared to other platforms. And here's what I'm going to do to remove the cost for you. If you go to shopify.com/bartlett, you'll be able to try Shopify for $1 a month. I've seen Shopify completely change people's lives. And for many of you, I think it could change yours.

31. 1:10:44 – 1:13:09

    Social Media Pressure

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:44

       One of the things that surprise- surprised me, and again it's because if we only get to see the sort of 2D representation of someone on a screen, whether they're, you know, wrest- doing a wrestling career or your UFC career, which is kind of like, it's kind of like, all of it's kind of like acting. The press conferences, the bravado, is, in your book you talk about how comments online and com- newspaper comments and stuff would get to you.

    2. RRRonda Rousey1:11:07

       Mm, I mean, you know, it starts off like that. (laughs) But, yeah, um, at first, you know, um, when everything was going great, it was, like, I would look at my comments like the morning newspaper. I'd wake up in the morning and look at my comments, I would look at my tag photos. And, it's so unhealthy. (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:28

       (laughs)

    4. RRRonda Rousey1:11:28

       But, um, but after my first loss, I quit cold turkey, which I felt like that was one thing that I needed to do, was to, like, not constantly need that, um, outside validation and stuff like that, especially from the internet and social media and stuff. And, I was kind of like spiraling in a way, and, and, kind of like giving that way too much stock in my, like, emotional, you know, state and stuff like that. And, um, and then pro wrestling, you're literally in front of a crowd that is, like, the embodiment of a comments section. (laughs)

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:04

       (laughs)

    6. RRRonda Rousey1:12:04

       In front of yourself. (laughs) Um, but, um, you know, that's also why I really, uh, enjoyed being a heel, which I, you know, wish they would've let me be a heel more often because, um, that's where I felt like I was happy, happiest when I wasn't trying to placate to the crowd, purposefully trying to, you know, piss them off- (laughs)

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:27

       Yeah. (laughs)

    8. RRRonda Rousey1:12:27

       ... and get a rise out of them, and not trying to, um, constantly, you know, um, pander.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:34

       I was surprised to hear about the WWE, that they kind of rewrite the script last minute, and that it's not... I don't know, you think of such a big business, you imagine they've got script writers and the scripts are written years ago.

    10. RRRonda Rousey1:12:43

        You would think it wouldn't be an absolute clusterfuck of a shit show, and you would be wrong. (laughs)

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:48

        Wow. Wow.

    12. RRRonda Rousey1:12:49

        Yeah, yeah. It would... And it's so needlessly dangerous. Like, no one can... there's... Like, a lot of times people can't rehearse, things are changed last minute. A lot of times you see them outside there performing, they've only talked about it, and they're doing it for the first time. So, a lot of these injuries happen because people just weren't able to rehearse, and the company doesn't give a shit because we're all expendable to them.

32. 1:13:09 – 1:13:30

    Did She Feel Expendable to the WWE?

    1. RRRonda Rousey1:13:09

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:09

       Did you feel expendable to the UFC, to the WWE?

    3. RRRonda Rousey1:13:12

       Yes. Yeah. I think w- you all, we all did. And we were-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:16

       You were contracters.

    5. RRRonda Rousey1:13:16

       And they m- they made sure to make us feel that way.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:20

       Why? Well, then they made sure to make you feel that way?

    7. RRRonda Rousey1:13:23

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:24

       So that you wouldn't get above your station or something? Or so that you would-

    9. RRRonda Rousey1:13:27

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:27

        ... just do whatever you're told?

    11. RRRonda Rousey1:13:28

        So, yeah, just do whatever you're told, "Just take it."

33. 1:13:30 – 1:16:05

    Vince McMahon and Sexual Allegations

    1. RRRonda Rousey1:13:30

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:30

       And you were all contractors at the, at the WWE as well, so you're not employees. So you have to pay for your own healthcare and all these kinds of things, from what I read in your book.

    3. RRRonda Rousey1:13:37

       Yep.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:38

       Which is pretty crazy. I mean, that would, that would never be allowed in, uh, where I'm from in the UK. And it's sort of Vince McMahon's kingdom.

    5. RRRonda Rousey1:13:47

       Yeah. Well, I mean, supposedly he's out now because they, you know, caught him paying company, company funds so he can shit on some girl's head in the office and, you know, do a threesome with her, with Johnny Laurinaitis. But, um, his cronies are still there. And so when the s- that stuff started coming out and Vince was gone before, he was still basically just calling it in and running the company. And, um... But yeah, like Bruce Prichard who's there now who's still, like, the head of creative or whatever title they gave him, um, is basically just taking orders from Vince and still running the company through him. And so when Vince was, uh, uh, re- resigned formally because of all these, like, sexual allegations and stuff that were coming out, um, he was still running the company informally, and I think he still is to this day.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:44

       You don't have a, a whole lot of nice things to say about these people.

    7. RRRonda Rousey1:14:47

       I mean, depends on who. The girls in the locker room, I absolutely love them, you know?

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:51

       The, the people at the top running it?

    9. RRRonda Rousey1:14:52

       Yeah. I mean, Steph and Triple H I think they're honestly doing their best, but, I mean, I think that Vince McMahon just created a fundamentally sick environment. And, uh, I think if, if Ari is gonna be able, uh, is gonna be able to... If Ari Emanuel, who bought it out from WME, is gonna be able to actually make this multi-billion dollar dysfunctional organization into one that functions, he's gotta clean out all of Vince's cronies. He's gotta completely clean house and, uh, remove Vince's influence completely. But, um, you know, no one's asking me. (laughs) But that's just h- what I experienced when Vince was gone. He was still running the show through, um, you know, people that he'd hired in the past, Bruce Prichard being number one of them.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:37

        Bruce Prichard's still there, I believe?

    11. RRRonda Rousey1:15:38

        Yeah. John Laurinaitis took, like... He w- he was, uh, he was cut loose because he got named specifically in, in the scandal. But, uh, yeah, Bruce Prichard is literally... I never heard him say a single one of his own opinions. He'd only say that, "Vince says this," "Vince says that," "Vince says this," "Vince says this," "Vince," "Vince," "Vince," and so he's literally just, like, you know... I, I c- I called him Vince's avatar. It is, that's basically what he is.

34. 1:16:05 – 1:20:03

    Ronda Suffering Two Miscarriages?

    1. RRRonda Rousey1:16:05

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:05

       You returned to the UFC after... You left in 2019. Um, you were there till, for, from 2017 to 2019. And, um, in 2017 you, is when you got married with Travis. I couldn't figure out from the, from the date, so I don't think the date was in your book, but at some point during this journey you, you start trying to have children.

    3. RRRonda Rousey1:16:26

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:27

       Um, something I'm trying now with my partner. I'm on that process as well. And you talk in the book about a really he- heartbreaking incident where you're filming a TV show with 9-1-1, the TV show 9-1-1. Um, and there was a s- a s- fight scenes and various stunts in that movie. And a day after that, you suffered a miscarriage.

    5. RRRonda Rousey1:16:47

       Yeah. I, um... Well, I found out I was pregnant right before the show started filming, and then I, um, my finger got chopped off from a bar door falling on it. And, um... But, you know, the, uh, we got, we went and checked out and there's, you know, the baby seemed just fine. Uh, but then I miscarried a couple weeks later, so I just kind of always felt like that was my fault that I wanted to keep doing dangerous stuff while I was pregnant, because I thought it made me cool. And then, um, and then, uh, I was just, like, depressed and, like, drinking and smoking and not taking care of myself, and then I got pregnant right away again. And then we never even saw the heartbeat that time, but I wasn't expecting anything more 'cause I just wasn't taking care of myself.

Episode duration: 1:36:48