Rousey on Tuesday gave an honest, brave and poignant account of the difficult minutes followingher loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193.
“I was in the medical room,” she said, “and I was down in the corner, I was sitting in the corner, and I was like, ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?’ I was literally sitting there thinking about killing myself at that exact second. I was like, ‘I’m nothing.’ I’m like, ‘What do I do anymore? No one gives a [expletive] about me anymore without this.' ”
It’s heartbreaking. And it’s important. Few famous athletes are willing to describe the depths of despair after losing, and fewer still are willing to admit thoughts of suicide. Rousey has changed the standards of toughness in the sports world, earning admirers for winning in stunning fashion. Here she does it again by showing a different kind of toughness after a loss.
“Being defeated is a choice,” she said. “Everyone has losses in their life, but I choose to always be undefeated.”
Those are inspiring words. But considering the punishment she took from Holm, and the difficulty she’s faced since, it’s hard not to wonder if the people around Rousey are protecting her as much as they could. Rousey noted in the interview Tuesday that she had fought three times in the nine months leading up to the Holm fight, and here she is again scheduled for a rematch later this year. Why so soon?
And do we know what her mental health is like now? Rousey’s father committed suicide when she was a child, and she turned to fighting to channel her pain:
“I had so much bottled-up grief and anger and self-loathing,” she wrote last year, “and for some reason I found an outlet that saved me. Fighting. To me, fighting is not an exhibition of brutality or a glorification of violence. Fighting is a metaphor for life.”
This sheds light on the emptiness she felt after losing to Holm. Perhaps the self-loathing returned, at least in that painful moment. Has that abated?
Then there are the physical concerns that are endemic to fighting and all contact sports. In the hours after Rousey lost to Holm, a representative eagerly rushed word to the public that she was not concussed, even though that was dubious considering the multiple hits she took to the face. (It was even less credible considering concussions can be diagnosed the next day or even two days after a blow to the head.)
“I was knocked out on my feet the first time I got hit,” she told DeGeneres on Tuesday. “It’s hard to really know what’s going on.”
“I had no perception,” she also said, “almost like I couldn’t see.”
“I was swinging blindly. I knew she was out there but I really don’t remember most of that.”
“My brain stopped working properly.”
This is clearly more than getting “dinged” or getting her “bell rung” in the arcane and euphemistic parlance for brain injury. The fact that a concussion was denied so quickly raises some alarms about who is looking out for her, and those alarms are heightened by Dana White’s comments to TMZ in the aftermath of Tuesday’s interview.
“Trust me, she’s good right now and in a great place,” White said. “Winners don’t like to lose.”
She’s in “a great place” so soon after being in such a dark place? This is an era of heightened awareness of the effects of concussions, especially repeated concussions should they occur, and Rousey is obviously vulnerable to brain injury every time she fights.
The caution isn’t because she’s a woman, either. Remember when Roy Jones Jr. was compared to Sugar Ray Robinson as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters of all time? In 2003, Jones was the first middleweight to win a heavyweight title in 106 years. The next May, he was knocked out by Antonio Tarver in a shocking second-round upset. Jones fought again soon after, in September, against Glen Johnson, and he was knocked out again. He was on the canvas for minutes after being counted out. Jones was never the same fighter again.
Now, would the result have been different had Jones taken more time off? It’s impossible to know. But looking back, was it really that important to return so quickly? And is it really that important for Rousey to fight Holm this calendar year, seeing that she was admittedly “tired” the last time?
“I want to beat her,” Rousey said of Holm, “and make everything right again.”
She should be given time to make everything right again before, and independent of, her rematch. Because the question looms: What if she loses? “Winners” don’t think like that, but somebody has to worry about the possibility that Rousey returns to her dark place and how she will emerge from it again. Her boyfriend, Travis Browne, has been a rock for her, but what about White and what about her coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, who Rousey’s own mother said she “would run over him with my car if there wasn’t a law against it.”
Who exactly is counseling Rousey?
“I guess it’s all going to be determined by what happens in the rematch,” Rousey told ESPN in another raw interview. “Everything is going to be determined by that. Either I’ll win and keep going or I won’t and I’ll be done with everything.”
That’s a lot of pressure for someone who still may be coping with a devastating loss.
Rousey isn’t the only one to face these kinds of demons. A lot of athletes, specifically Olympians, deal with depression or depression-like symptoms after the emotional rush of a lifetime challenge is over. Many roar back after considerable time off and some even rise to new career heights. That’s certainly Rousey’s plan, and many want to see her triumphant again.
But there’s a more important fight she has to wage every day, before and after she meets Holm. And for that, she deserves all the time and support she needs.
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