The UFC, in part of their build up for the Rousey-Holm fight have made an amazing short film detailing the life story of the champion.
It follows her in hir first Judo class, her days in school, to her competitive Judo career, to her MMA career, to her fight with Holm.
Ronda Rousey was born in Riverside County, California, the daughter of Ron Rousey and AnnMaria De Mars (née Waddell). Her mother had a decorated Judo career and was the first American to win a World Judo Championship with her victory in 1984. Her maternal grandfather was Venezuelan and was of part Afro-Venezuelan ancestry. Her other ancestry includes English and Polish. Her step-father is an aerospace engineer.
Rousey dropped out of high school and later earned a G.E.D. She was raised in Jamestown, North Dakota, retiring from her judo career at 21 and starting her MMA career at 22 when she realized that she did not want to spend her life in a conventional field of work.
Rousey released called My Fight / Your Fight.
She was featured in article in the New York Post:
About difficult childhood:
“Rousey was born in Riverside County, Calif., with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. She was blue. Doctors revived her, but those crucial moments without oxygen led to developmental delays. She didn’t begin talking until she was 4 years old.
“At about 6, I began speaking coherently in sentences,” Rousey says. “They told me I had brain damage from the hypoxia. But when you’re a kid, your brain figures out a way to reorganize.”
Her beloved dad and namesake, Ron, encouraged her. “You’re a smart kid,” he’d say. “It’s not like you’re some f- -kin’ moron.”
She talks about her father’s suicide:
“When Rousey was 8, her father killed himself, committing suicide by asphyxia in the family garage while Ronda and her sister Jennifer watched Nickelodeon in the living room. He had suffered chronic, acute back pain since a freak accident a few years before, but no one saw it coming.”
“None of us were the same after that,” Rousey says. Her father’s death was the most formative event of her life, and she almost never talks about it.
“I never wanted to be in the situation where I’ve told the story so many times that I become detached from it and don’t cry,”
Her post-Olympic, pre-MMA life style, after years of training for the Olympics, she spent 1 year partying:
“Rousey began smoking and drinking heavily, often beginning her day with a cigarette and a vodka espresso. She developed a pot-and-Vicodin habit. She’d sleep in her car, and when she did find an apartment, all she could afford was a 12-by-12-foot studio.”
