Rousey: I was willing to die or be paralyzed vs. Carmouche

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey says her most difficult fight was vs. Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 on Feb. 23, 2013. Carmouche took Rousey’s back, and choked for all she was worth.

“I dislocated my jaw, broke my sinuses, was coughing,” recalled Rousey to Lance Pugmire for the LA Times. “When her hand went across my jaw, my mouth was ripped open. That’s the only fight I got a bruise in.”

“The worse-case scenario is you break your neck, and my neck was past the place where it shouldn’t have gone.”

“It was in that moment I realized I was willing to die to win this fight. I was willing to be a quadriplegic to win that fight. It was that important to me. I didn’t care. The thought of giving up never happened. You have to want it more than the other person.”

Then Rousey broke free, and things went from injury to insult.

“The first thing I tried to do was fix my bra, because [it] was coming off,” said Ronda. “But then she kicked me right in the chest.”

And then Ronda won via Armbar.

Ronda Rousey fights Holly Holm at UFC 193 on November 15, 2015 at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.