Ronda Rousey: 'I want to fight for as long as possible'
At this stage in her career, it's safe to say Ronda Rousey is sitting on top of the world.
The UFC women's bantamweight champion was just named the world's most dominant athlete by Sports Illustrated while also becoming only the second MMA fighter in history to land the cover. She just released her new autobiography called "My Fight, Your Fight" that soon may be a New York Times best seller.
Rousey is also one of the highest-paid athletes in MMA, and while she's not ready to compare numbers with anybody, she recently told the Howard Stern show that she's "very well taken care of" by the UFC.
In the past year, Rousey has appeared in "The Expendables 3", "Furious 7" and the upcoming "Entourage" movie. Oh, and she has a fight scheduled in early August against another undefeated opponent in Bethe Correia at UFC 190, where Rousey will walk into the Octagon as somewhere close to a 12-to-1 favorite to win yet again.
Rousey acknowledges she has only about one free day per month with all of her other commitments, but she's still training just as hard as ever before and fighting remains her central focus.
It's a pretty amazing accomplishment to juggle all of those jobs, but Rousey isn't looking cross anything off the list any time soon. She even said she someday will return to the WWE, despite UFC boss Dana White's previous assertion that her Wrestlemania appearance was a "one and done."
However, while her popularity outside of MMA continues to grow on a daily basis, Rousey says her primary focus is still fighting and she's not leaving for quite some time.
"I want to fight for as long as possible," Rousey told Stern. "I think it's not about a number of fights. I think you have a certain amount of ring time in you."
In a separate interview with Sirius XM earlier in the week, Rousey spoke more about how many fights she has left in her and while she's bounced back and forth on timelines previously, it appears her love of MMA never has been deeper.
Considering Rousey has run through her past three opponents in a combined one minute and 36 seconds, it's understandable why she's not looking to go anywhere, especially if she keeps destroying every top contender in less than two minutes. There may be a time when someone finally pushes Rousey to the breaking point, but right now that hasn't even come close to happening, so why should she contemplate an end date to her career?
"The plan is you only have so much fight time in you for your whole career. I only have so much fight time left," Rousey said. "If I keep coming out unscathed, I'll keep fighting for a long time. If I have a few five-round wars, it's going to be a lot fewer fights, so it depends on how much damage I take every fight.
"If I keep coming out and waltzing and frolicking out, I'll waltz and frolic back in but you never know. You have a short shelf life in this sport. So I'm planning for after already."
With everything she's been doing lately it's clear Rousey will have plenty to fill her plate after fighting is finished, but the 28-year-old couldn't even begin to speculate when that will be.
If Correia can't offer much more of a challenge than Rousey's previous three opponents, Rousey can keep cashing checks while pursuing all of her outside interests unfettered.
After all, it seems this is Rousey's world and everybody else is just living in it.
