Ronda Rousey is on the canvas after being knocked out by Holly Holm in their UFC women’s bantamweight championship bout in 2015. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images
Rousey “sat alone on the cold, grey concrete floor” and “tears ran down my cheeks”. She was barefoot, silent and shivering. “I could taste the blood in my mouth, my tongue against a gaping hole of flesh and muscle where my inside bottom lip had once been.”
She could hear people outside revelling in her devastating defeat. “It was the worst moment of my life. It was the most intense pain, misery, embarrassment and shame I had ever felt. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to swallow a bottle of painkillers, close my eyes, and end it.”
Only one man could talk properly to her. Travis found the words as, while she sobbed in his arms, he reminded her: “You are so much more than a fighter.”
Rousey had been venerated for so long and pressured into fighting for the UFC so often. But after that defeat and another early stoppage loss to Amanda Nunes in December 2016, Rousey was ridiculed relentlessly in a defining example of social media’s desire to destroy a famous figure as they stumble. She finally found a way out of such distress. It helped that Rousey knew she had to protect her brain and no longer risk being punched or kicked in the head. She also tells me how, with patience and humour, Travis showed her how to live normally again.
Ronda Rousey with husband Travis Browne. Photograph: Eric Williams
“He was one of the very few people who saw me as more than just Ronda Rousey, the UFC champion. Here’s a perfect way to sum up Travis. When we first got together I told him that there was no way I was ever going to cook for a man. So for a year he cooked every single meal we had together because he loved me. Then one day I said: ‘I can make really nice pancakes. I want to make you some pancakes.’”
Rousey laughs in delight. “So I started making pancakes and then more and more meals. I wanted to show I loved him by cooking for him, as he had done for me. And then he did this really smart thing. He changed the voice on the GPS so that it had an Australian accent. It was because he didn’t want me to have any bad association with my defeat in Melbourne. To this day we still hear an Australian voice on our GPS.”
In California they have “our regenerative ranch where we started with one seed and we now have hundreds of acres of grassland”. “We’re figuring out how to use our animals and natural processes to bring this ecosystem to its fullest potential. We now have herds of antelope coming through and roe deer and migrating geese. We’ve taken this land that was so neglected and abused and made it a real refuge for all the wildlife in the area as well as raising our animals humanely so they can exhibit all their natural behaviours.
Regenerative agriculture is one of the most scalable solutions to combat climate change. I really believe in it
“We could have taken the money we made from fighting and put it into property and just been landlords. But I don’t want to leave our kids a pile of money that’s on fire because the world is burning. Regenerative agriculture is one of the most scalable solutions to combat climate change. I really believe in it.”
Rousey worked for a while as a wrestler in the WWE and she quickly discovered that, even in that circus, women were treated badly. But she is proud of how she changed combat sport and made women fighters integral to the business of the UFC. “I tried to win as quickly as possible, taking zero damage and I’m really proud of what I was able to accomplish – especially with my limitations.”
She has also found peace even if she cannot be certain of the future health of her brain. “I need to enjoy the moment and be happy where I’m at,” Rousey says after an hour of sombre reflection and riotous laughter. “I don’t want my body to be perfect when it’s buried in the ground.
“I have no regrets and if I get to a point where you can just park me in front of the ocean and all I can do is sit and watch the whales, I should be happy with that. I would do it all again, but I wish I could do it with a little more science and knowledge in mind.”
Our Fight by Ronda Rousey is published on 4 April by Century Books
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