Ronda Rousey has formed a bond with coach Ricky Lundell since leaving the UFC nearly a decade ago.
Lundell once serve as an opposing coach to Rousey on Season 18 of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series. He was in Miesha Tate’s corner for their highly anticipated title rematch at UFC 168 in December 2013, but since then, a lot has changed.
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So much, in fact, that Lundell is now Rousey’s (12-2) head coach and will be leading the charge on fight night when the former longtime UFC champion steps into the cage for her return to MMA competition May 16 against Gina Carano (7-1) at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. (Netflix).
“We’re basically here because f*cking Ricky,” Rousey said on her YouTube channel. “We were mortal enemies. Started off as mortal enemies. He was coaching against me on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and he was so nice I was like, ‘This motherf*cker is so patronizing and fake.’ And I hated his guts.”
Despite Rousey’s past disdain, a door for a new relationship was opened up by her husband, former UFC heavyweight Travis Browne. Lundell and Browne had a bond of their own, which eventually led to the barrier being broken down.
Eventually, Rousey and Lundell began training together in judo and spending more time in and out of the gym. Rousey felt Lundell was always “planting the seed” to come back to MMA, then eventually the day came where it came to fruition.
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Lundell said he never shared the negative perspective toward Rousey that she once held against him, and expressed his gratitude for being part of her journey to what will be a monumental event headlined against Carano.
“Watching this experience and watching it open up, it has been such a travesty to watch the fight community and see how the fight community has responded to Ronda,” Lundell said. “She competed so hard for all of the fans, took MMA to this next level, especially female MMA. Then as soon as a loss shows up, the entire community just turned in such a way that anybody would be like, ‘Wow, I’m really hurt by this’ and associate it with marital arts.
“When Ronda got to separate from that and really come back to what she loved deeply inside of her, I saw her start to quickly heal from that space of, ‘I’m not doing this for that, I’m doing it for me.’ That has been really, really powerful to be a part of.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ronda Rousey enlists rival Miesha Tate’s ex-coach for MMA return
