Chael Sonnen: 'Treatment of Ronda Rousey was not unique'

When Ronda Rousey made her professional mixed martial arts debut in King of the Cage in March 2011, no one knew that she’d change the landscape of the sport.  She was signed by Strikeforce later that year and was noticed by UFC matchmakers.  

At the time, women did not compete in the UFC.  There were no women’s divisions.  Rousey’s star power and ability to arm bar seemingly any opponent propelled women into the spotlight and changed the mind of UFC CEO Dana White.  White once said that women would never fight in the UFC. but then he met Rousey.

Rousey was the inaugural UFC women’s bantamweight champion and the first female fighter signed by the fight promotion.  She defended the title six times before losing her last two fights and leaving the sport.  Since walking away in 2016, Rousey hasn’t even attended an event.  She believes the MMA media and the fans have turned on her and that she’s not welcome at events.  

“I feel like I’m really vilified by MMA media at this point and I’m not really welcomed back, which is why I haven’t gone to a UFC fight since, ’cause I’m pretty sure if I walked into the arena, I’d be booed. Yeah! That’s how it feels,” Rousey said in a recent interview on the “High Performance” podcast.

Former UFC title challenger and commentator Chael Sonnen doesn’t think Rousey’s treatment was unique, and believes she was treated like every other fighter.  

“If the public understood Ronda is done, I can assure you they would not boo her.  If her career were truly done and it’s not a back-and-forth, and it’s not a play, and it’s not to get a bigger contract here… If they truly understood that that artist, even if a martial artist, but that artist’s career is behind, they absolutely would not boo,” said Sonnen.   

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“She is right.  That’s how her career went.  They built her to the highest and the second she fell they talked about she was terrible.  That’s true.  The part that she’s missing is that”s not unique.  There’s never been anybody to come along who has a story that’s any different,” Sonnen continued.    

“The peaks and the valleys of many other athletes aren’t the same.  They never rose to the level that Ronda did and therefore that fall was never quite as dramatic.  And that’s just something we know about life.  What goes up must come down.  Not maybe and not sometimes.  What goes up must come down,” Sonnen said.  

“I do admit, it might have felt unique to Ronda.  It might have felt like an extra level of hate, or even meanness by the fans…  If you stand back and look at it there was nothing, and I mean nothing, aside from the peaks and the valleys, those were higher and I suspect lower, but there was nothing about her career or the way the media treated her that isn’t how the media treats everybody.”