Now just a fortnight away from her long-anticipated comeback fight versus Amanda Nunez, it's clear Ronda Rousey is both still deeply affected by her defeat to Holly Holm, and deeply focused on achieving redemption.
In a fascinating long interview with ESPN, she cuts an entirely different figure to the one who MMA fans adored during her reign of supposed invincibility, explaining how she still cries about that loss and why she turned down a spot on the UFC 205 card at Madison Square Garden.
For UFC 205, she says, she's grateful for the Conor McGregor phenomenon; he took the weight off her shoulders and became the poster-boy for the card when Dana White and the organisation came calling, allowing Rousey to fully focus on her recovery from knee surgery.
One thing she refuses to abide by, however, is McGregor's money-obsessed shtick, nor his faux feud with Floyd Mayweather (for the love of God, their teams had a meeting post-UFC 194). Instead, Rousey is motivated simply by winning, having made sufficient dough throughout her time as champion:
If money is the motivation, then fuck you. All these Money people... 'Money' Mayweather, 'Money' McGregor. I see they're trying to do an angle or whatever.
People buy it... The worship of money in our society is so deep. But just because that's the easiest way to keep people's attention or entertain them doesn't mean that's the right way.
Rousey revealed that she bumped into McGregor a month after the UFC 200 card from which he was pulled, and advised him to make his protests in advance of agreeing to fights, as opposed to facing everything during camp. She's of firm belief that she took her fight with Holm too short of notice, keen to please the UFC and its powers-that-be, perhaps blinded by her own perceived indestructability.
She also makes it clear that she won't make the same mistake again:
I was just trying to make too many people happy. But when I try and do favors and make everybody else happy, at the end of the day, they walk away happy and I'm the one who has to deal with the depression. All the pay-per-views in the world, all the money in the world, it means fucking nothing to me because I lost.
I will never put my body at risk for money and views ever again. What makes me happy is winning and being the best in the world and that's it. Fuck all the promotion and energy spent on anything that's not me winning. And anyone who tries to tell me I owe them energy on frivolous shit during camp out of 'loyalty' or 'friendship' deserves no loyalty from me and is no friend of mine.
This is not a time for fucking favors. This is a time for redemption and revenge.
She's talking the talk again, and on December 30th we'll see if the former women's bantamweight champion can again walk the walk.
The full read on ESPN is worth a glance, too.
