Correia: I always said Ronda wasn’t psychologically strong

UFC women’s bantamweight Bethe Correia spoke recently with the Brazilian language Combate, ahead of her fight Saturday night with Jessica Eye at UFC 205.

Correia started fighting in 2012, and won six in a row in Brazil. Then she signed with the UFC, and won three more, defeating Julie Kedzie, Jessamyn Duke, and Shayna Baszler. The last two were members of then division champion Ronda Rousey’s Four Horse Women.

The leadup to the fight featured excellent trash talk. However, although Correia lasted longer than Rousey’s two previous opponents put together, the fight still ended in 34 seconds. Then Correia lost a split decision to Raquel Pennington in April.

Eye is coming off a three-fight losing streak, but will be fighting in front of an appreciative hometown crowd in Cleveland. However, although Rousey has not fought since losing her title to Holly Holm nearly a year ago, she continues the dominate the conversation.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the win when I face Ronda so I could show everyone that I was telling the truth,” said Correia, as translated by Lucas Rezende for BE. “I always said Ronda didn’t have a strong psychological side and the proof to that is that she’s been missing ever since she lost. Nobody knows what is going on with her. I don’t know how she is or what her reasons were, but I don’t think she’s doing all right.”

“She really didn’t expect that loss, so she’s taking some time to overcome that. I’ll never get Ronda’s credit for what she has done to female MMA and I would love it if she came back to MMA. Not only me, but the whole world wants to see her back in the Octagon. Especially because I have a loss to her on my record and I still want to rematch her in the future. But for that to happen, she needs to come back first.”

Add to Rousey needing to return, that Correia needs to win on Saturday.