It's been seven months since Ronda Rousey suffered the first loss of her MMA career when she fell to Holly Holm at UFC 193 as the victim of a vicious second round head kick knockout.
Since that time, Rousey has sent mixed messages about her future in the sport while pushing back her return to action to the point where UFC president Dana White recently said he hopes she'll return in late 2016 but her next fight may not happen until 2017.
Whether Rousey returns or not remains a mystery, but UFC color commentator Joe Rogan recently discussed her loss to Holly Holm on his podcast while pinpointing the ways she fell short last November.
Rogan points specifically at two key areas that he believes backfired on Rousey and the first on his list was her numerous commitments in Hollywood that had the former women's champion signing movie deals, book deals and all kinds of other opportunities that took her head away from the fight game.
"These themes play themselves out over and over again. The traps are all there but everybody keeps going for the candy and they keep getting caught in the trap. The traps of Hollywood are always there for any superstar athlete, especially fighters and we've seen it all throughout history," Rogan said.
"Ronda was and still is a giant superstar. She's this undefeated women's fighter. She's crushing all the competition, she looks like a destroyer and then the (expletive) traps."
All these movies start coming out, all these deals start getting made, books start getting written, all these television shows and all these traps. All those traps, they keep your focus. They steal little bits of your focus. -- Joe Rogan
Rogan compared Rousey's downfall to boxer Tommy Morrison, who was swooped up in a wave of success after starring in "Rocky V" alongside Sylvester Stallone but then his boxing career took a huge hit following a loss to Ray Mercer in 1991.
The other factor that Rogan believes contributed to Rousey's loss was her own hubris that had her believing that she could go toe-to-toe with a striker as dangerous as Holly Holm.
Rogan points specifically to Rousey's win over Bethe Corriea just three months before the fight with Holm as a prime reason why she may have felt that she could throw down with one of the best stand up fighters in the history of the women's division.
It clearly didn't pay off.
"Anybody who looked at her fights could see Ronda Rousey was this fierce competitor, one of the best examples of judo we've ever seen in MMA. Her judo's spectacular. There's a reason why she's a medalist in the Olympics. She's a sensational competitor and her grappling's outstanding and her arm bar technique is amongst the best in the world," Rogan said about Rousey.
"But she's knocking out these girls who are nowhere near world class as far as like kickboxing and striking is concerned. Holly Holm is 100-percent world class. She is an 18-time world-boxing champion. She's a kickboxing champion. She was an MMA competitor for a couple of years before she got into the UFC and she was having these ridiculous head kick KO's. She's a beast and for (Ronda) to think she's going to treat this Holly Holm woman the same way she was able to bully like Bethe Correia. Bethe Correia is slow and awkward and not that athletic."
Holm was a completely different animal according to Rogan and she made Rousey pay for standing and striking with her in the center of the Octagon. Add to that, Rousey's own ego that had been built up from so many dominant wins and it's hard to reconcile what exactly happens when it's all shattered thanks to one head kick that sent her career spiraling back down to Earth.
"The idea that you're going to have the same approach that you used on Bethe Correia with someone like Holly Holm, that's just madness," Rogan said.
"That's something that happens when someone gets so absorbed with this idea that they're special. So absorbed with this idea -- when you're on top, you think you are the (expletive) person, you are the woman, you're the man, you're the (expletive). No one's going to (expletive) with you, I'm just going to run through this (expletive)! And then you get cracked. Then you realize this game doesn't give a (expletive). This game doesn't give a (expletive) about your charisma. It doesn't give a (expletive) about the Vegas odds. It doesn't give a (expletive) about how much money you made or how many times you've been on "Entourage" or how many movie deals. This game doesn't give a (expletive)."
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