Ronda Rousey is at war with the UFC.
For many years, Rousey was famously one of UFC CEO Dana White’s favorite fighters, a true friend and company women. Since ending her retirement to return versus Gina Carano at the inaugural MVP MMA event on Netflix, however, Rousey has been openly critical of the promotion. She’s consistently tried to avoid trashing White himself, but Rousey really hasn’t held back in her critics of the current UFC executives who run the show.
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The relationship went sour when the promotion could no longer offer Rousey pay-per-view (PPV) points in the current Paramount era and were unwilling to foot the bill upfront. As such, Rousey jumped ship to MVP, and she’s not holding back in her criticisms of the UFC’s decline as a place of business.
“I feel like we’re in a crossroads for the sport, and this is the beginning of a big change that is long overdue,” Rousey said on her YouTube channel (via MMA Fighting). “I meant it when I said that the UFC is suffering from a lack of competition. They’ve become too comfortable with being the dominant force in the industry, and just making fighters offers where they go, ‘Take it or leave it, what else are you going to do?’
“It used to be that UFC was the best way to make money in combat sports. Now it’s becoming the worst place to make money in combat sports. It used to be anti-establishment, and now it’s become the establishment. And I’ve always been an ‘anti’ kind of bitch. [Laughs]”
Again, Rousey lays the blame at the feet of the executives like Hunter Campbell, not Dana White. According to the “Rowdy” former champion, White no longer has control of negotiations or matchmaking (something he recently admitted under oath).
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“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a company woman, and was very grateful while I was there, but I feel like since they’ve taken the reigns away from Dana they’ve really lost their way, and they think that they’re too big to fail, and that they can just disappoint the fans over and over, and they don’t care how many casual fans they lose, because they’ve got their streaming, and ‘F—k you, we got ours.’
“I think they need to be reminded of the precariousness of their situation, and they need to start appreciating the fighters that give everything that they do any value at all. I think that they’ve forgotten that, and I’m coming to remind them.”
For a complete look at the “Rousey vs. Carano”-led MVP MMA 1 event on May 16, click here.
