White: Rousey winding down her MMA career

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey appeared recently on The Ellen DeGeneris show and said she is winding down her MMA career. Rousey fights current champ Amanda Nunes in the main event of UFC 207 on December 30.

UFC president Dana White spoke recently with a TMZ stringer and corroborated Rousey’s remarks.

Listen, I don’t want to take the wind out of her sails. Let her say her own stuff,” said White. “Obviously, I know what’s going on with her. But, yeah, it’s winding down for Ronda.”

White was asked how many fights she has left.

“That’s up to her to say, you know what I mean,” said White. “That’s why I say ‘I don’t want to steal her thunder.’ It’s her career. But she’ll have enough for us to still enjoy watching her.

White was then asked if the loss to Holly Holm accelerated the talk about retirement.

No, no, no,” said White. “Ronda Rousey made a lot of money. She made a lot of money. She accomplished what she set out to do. You get to a point, especially in this business, when you have to start looking at things. And she loves acting. She loves acting. She’s good at it. If she dedicated herself to it, she would be even better at it.

White has had only one truly historic fight get away thus far – Fedor Emelianenko in the Octagon. Another would be Rousey vs. Cyborg.

“I’ve been saying it for years, that Ronda wants to fight Cyborg,” said White. “But Cyborg doesn’t want to go to 135. I think to make this superfight that everyone wants to see, we’ll have to agree on a weight. I don’t know yet. Ronda might say, I’ll take her at 145. I don’t know. But, I’m just assuming that’s what’s going to happen.”

Lastly, White was asked if Ronda will truly be done with MMA when she says she’s done.

I think when she says she’s done, she’s done,” said White. “Because at the end of the day, she stopped doing Judo and moved on to Mixed Martial Arts. And I think when she’s done with that, she will probably move on to acting.

The interview closed with White declining to comment much on the potential return of former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. White noted the pair had met recently and implied that GSP had taken offense at previous remarks he had made publicly, so decided to button up on that one.