MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 15: Ronda Rousey of the United States (R) and Holly Holm of the United States compete in their UFC women's bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 193 event at Etihad Stadium on November 15, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) (2015 Getty Images)
It’s no surprise that Ronda Rousey has stayed away from the public to recover – both emotionally and physically – from her stunning and decisive loss to Holly Holm last month.
However, the 28-year-old MMA champ opened up for the first time to ESPN The Magazine about her current state of mind, promising that she will be back in the octagon.
“I’m just really f---king sad,” Rousey said. “I need to come back. I need to beat this chick. Who knows if I’m going to pop my teeth out or break my jaw or rip my lip open. I have to f---king do it.”
In the interim, she went off the grid, had long conversations with her 7-year-old Argentinian Mastiff, Mochi, and thought about her loss at UFC 193 in Australia.
I was thinking, 'On the bright side, I'm more like, crushed idealism and sardonic sense of humor now,'" Rousey told ESPN. "I got hit in that first round ... I cut my lip open and knocked a couple of my teeth loose. I was out on my feet from the very beginning. I wasn't thinking clearly. I had that huge cut in my mouth, and I just spit [the blood] out at my feet. Then they brought the bucket over, and I'm like, 'Why didn't I spit it in the bucket?' I never spit on the ground."
Rousey said it was sheer determination that allowed her to continue for the remainder of the fight.
“It was like a dumbed-down dreamy version of yourself making decisions,” she told the magazine. “I was just trying to shake myself out of it. I kept saying to myself, ‘You’re OK, keep fighting. You’re OK, keep fighting.”
She went on, “I just feel so embarrassed. How I fought after that is such an embarrassing representation of myself. I wasn’t even f---king there.”
In the run-up to the Nov. 14 fight, Rousey trash-talked Holm, 34, on several occasions and even refused to touch gloves with her before the bout.
“"It was just like a reaction," Rousey told ESPN. ”I was like, 'The last time I saw you [at the weigh-in], you were putting your fist on my chin and trying to get a cheap hit on me, then you turn around and you want to touch gloves? You have to be one way or the other. So if you want to be that way with me, that's the way it is.'"
Holm knocked Rousey out with a kick to the head, and, in the days after the defeat, the formerly undefeated fiighter just wanted to hide. But her family wouldn’t let her.
"I always say you have to be willing to get your heart broken. That's just what f---king happens when you try." she said. "It wasn't long before [my family] was stopping by and telling me that I can't hide my whole life. I have to do something with myself. Turn on my cellphone, and stop ignoring everyone."
Rousey said that despite the loss, she knows she has to get back in the ring.
"I always think I can lose all of them. I'm the only one that's scared when I walk in there. I'm always f---king scared," she said. “Of course. What else am I going to f---king do?"
Last week, UFC president Dana White confirmed that a Rousey-Holm rematch is in the works.
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