While Ronda Rousey discussed her UFC departure in great detail in her latest autobiography, Our Fight, and has now talked in greater detail about the medical issues that led to her loss and eventual departure from the MMA company.
The Baddest Woman on the Planet explained that her history of concussions led to debilitating migraine, resulting in a loss of vision during fights. Now, she's taken part in a long-term neurological study for fighters, helping her to further identify what ultimately derailed her career in the octagon.
"We found out that it has a lot to do with migraines," Rousey explained. "So I have epilepsy runs in my family...and there is a relationship between epilepsy and migraines."
Explaining that there was a "feedback loop" between her concussion history and her predisposition to migraines, Rousey added, "People that get migraines are actually more susceptible to concussions, and the more concussions that you get, the easier it is for these impacts to set off a migraine."
"So what we think was going on was...in these fights, I would get hit, and I basically, like, lose big chunks of my vision and my depth perception and my ability to track movements quickly and make snap decisions, which is basically all the things that I need."
"It was like, progressively getting worse, like, to the point where, you know, sparring sessions, anything like that, like, I would have to, like, shut myself into a dark room afterward," she said of a newfound sensitivity to light. "It was like, lighter and lighter hits were causing it to the point where, like, if I was getting jabbed at all I was basically, like, losing my vision."
Admitting that she felt unable to speak about it while she was still an active competitor because it would come across like an excuse, Rousey added, "That’s how I had to approach it. I had to win perfectly with no error...that was literally, like the margin of error that I was dealing with."
While her UFC career is long over, speculation continues to run rampant that Rousey will make her WWE return.
TKO is thought to be eager to bring her back into the fold, particularly as her stint on Vince McMahon's watch came to a disappointing end for her and fans (a result of predictably bad booking and a different of opinion in terms of creative). Hopefully, we'll have more to share on that soon.
You can hear more from Rousey in the player below.