Friday 26 August 2011

Ronda Rousey: appreciates eye contact if being slapped in the ass

At just 24 years old, Ronda Rousey has one of the most impressive resumes in combat sports. She has taken home an Olympic bronze medal, has the unique distinction of being the first American to win an Olympic medal in women’s judo since its inception as an Olympic sport, and has an undefeated record in MMA, both on the amateur and professional level. In a recent interview with TapouT Radio, Rousey gave her opinion of the reffing during her recent fight, as well as her views on the controversy surrounding it, training out of the Hayastan MMA Academy with “savage Armenians”, and a variety of other topics.

Sarah D’Alelio fight:
“If you feel someone’s arm popping out, and they’re screaming, it’s a really fine line to cross. You don’t know, like, what’s the proper way to threaten to break someone’s arm? It’s kind of hard, so I think she is lucky that her arm is fine. I was in the situation where I had her hand tucked under my armpit. There was no way she was going anywhere. I really don’t see anything controversial about it, but, since there has been controversy, I guess, the match has gotten a lot more attention, so it’s like a good thing.” Ronda goes on about her reaction to the ref stoppage, stating,
“It’s annoying for me when the referees don’t comment or, you know, say anything. I think they should, on matches like that, interview the referee and get their take on it. If there’s any dispute, what’s wrong with the referee explaining it to the audience? I really don’t see a problem with that.”

Taking damage during a fight:
“Maximum efficiency, minimum effort. I really think that what makes someone have a long career. Like you notice how GSP and Anderson Silva, they don’t get hit and knocked around that much, so that’s kind of why they’ve been around for a while. I don’t want to be a defensive player, but I want to take minimal damage, and I’m happy with how things are going so far. You know, if I bash my face up, I live in LA, so I can just buy a new face.”

Training at Hayastan MMA Academy:
“They’re a great group. They seem more rough on the outside, but they’re all teddy bears, really. Armenians are  aggressive people in general. They like to fight, they like to party, and they like to make money. It’s a good group to hang out with. You just kind of have to get used to their vernacular.”

“Judo” Gene LeBell:
“Gene still comes in on Mondays to teach class, and I’ve never met a single person with a bad thing to say about Gene LeBell, except Steven Seagal. Gene’s the man. If you don’t like Gene LeBell, that’s like saying you don’t like the Beatles, like, there’s something wrong with you, if you don’t like Gene. He is the sweetest, coolest guy ever. You can’t say one bad thing about him. He’s still very good at teaching, and he teaches the cool wrestling stuff, sometimes, too. He’s got a lot of practical things that I use all the time, but a lot of the time, I’m like ‘Gene, just show me something wild from the old wrestling days’ and he’ll come up with some ridiculous stuff that’s fun.”

Training camp bucket list:
“Manny (Gamburyan) was saying Eddie Bravo’s place would be cool to go to for grappling, and I was at ATT, and that was really cool. I’d like to go there again. I always hear stuff about Greg Jackson’s place and AKA. I’d like to just kind of  bounce around and see those places, just to see them, and now that I’m not working, I can do that. I don’t know, you have to be invited first, I think. I don’t want to walk in and be like ‘Look bitches this is Ronda Rousey, and I came to train’. I don’t want to be that pompous.”

Haters:
“I got haters like a year ago. For some reason I attract haterdom, but that’s fine. A lot of the people that I see that go out of their way to put somebody that they don’t know down, they have a lot of other problems in their life.  I don’t take it personally, because usually, I kind of think of people like that as people lashing out for some other personal reason of theirs. So, you know, go ahead and hate, vent however you want. I don’t know you. Everyone that I’ve met, personally, they’ve all been like ‘oh, you’re so and so, that fighter chick’ and have always been super nice. They haven’t been like ‘you’re a bitch and I told everyone on the internet that, and I’m going to tell you that in person’. And you know, those people, if they ran into you in person, they’d be like ‘oh my god, hi’ and you know, it’s just internet talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Next fight:
“It’s going to be soon. I think it’s going to be on TV, because they’re trying to get me on TV for this one, too. So it’s going to be on a main card, at least I hope so.”

Cris Cyborg:
“I don’t think I’m going to be fighting for a title until my current contract is over.”

Her Dogo Argentino and eye contact (this portion may require listening to the interview at about the 31:30 time mark):
“I take her to the park every morning before I train, then I come home and slap her around a little bit, but I slap her around in a good way. She loves to get slapped on the butt, and she’ll turn around and like look you in the eye while you slap her on the butt. It’s kind of like, a little weird for me. She demands eye contact while getting slapped on the ass.”
At this point in the interview, we couldn’t resist, so we asked Ronda if she also likes eye contact when she gets slapped on the butt.  She had this to say,
“I don’t demand it, but you know, it’s a plus. It’s kind of bad if you get your ass slapped and you don’t look to see who it is.”

You can follow Ronda Rousey on her Twitter or you can check out her website

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