Who isRonda Rousey? Ahead of her Netflix match against Gina Carano, let’s take a closer look at the athlete. Ronda Rousey’s career has covered more ground than almost anyone in modern sport, from Olympic judo mats to the UFCoctagon, the WWE ring, and the Hollywood screen. Now, eight years after her last MMA fight, she is stepping back into competition on May 16, 2026, in one of the most talked-about matchups of the year.

Ronda Rousey, born February 1, 1987, in Riverside, California, is a former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, Olympic bronze medalist, WWE superstar, and actress who is widely credited with putting women’s MMA on the global map. Now 39 years old, she is set to return to competition on May 16, 2026, in a Netflix-exclusive MMA event against Gina Carano.

Before anyone knew her name in combat sports,Rouseywas a judoka. She competed at the 2004 Athens Olympics at just 17 years old, becoming the youngest American judoka to appear at a Games at the time. Four years later at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she defeated Annett Boehm by yuko in the bronze medal bout to become the first American woman in history to win an Olympic judo medal.

Her path to that medal wasn’t easy. In the quarterfinals, she faced Dutch former world champion Edith Bosch, who had previously dislocated Rousey’s elbow twice in 2007, and was forced into overtime before being eliminated. She then fought through the repechage bracket, winning three consecutive bouts to claim bronze. The year before the Olympics, she had also reached the final of the 2007 World Championships at under-70kg, earning silver. Her mother, AnnMarie De Mars, had been the first U.S. woman to win a World judo title just 24 years earlier.

Rousey made her amateur MMA debut in August 2010 and won viaarmbarin 23 seconds. She won all three of her amateur fights by armbar, all inside one minute,beforeturning professional. Her pro debut came in March 2011 at a King of the Cage event in Tarzana, California, another armbar, another first-round finish.

She signed with Strikeforce and worked her way to a title shot againstMiesha Tatein March 2012, submitting Tate by armbar in the first round to claim the Strikeforce bantamweight belt. By November 2012, the UFC came knocking, and Rousey became the first woman to ever sign a contract with the promotion. Rather than fight for the inaugural title,Dana Whitesimply named her the first UFC women’s bantamweight champion.

Her first UFC fight, against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 in February 2013, was also the first women’s bout in UFC history. She won by armbar at 4:49 of the opening round. What followed was a string of five more title defenses, including a rematch win over Miesha Tate, a 14-second submission of Cat Zingano at UFC 184, and a 16-second TKO of Alexis Davis. By the summer of 2015, she stood at 12-0 and had defended the belt six times in the UFC alone.

Rousey’s arrival in the UFC reshaped the organization. Dana White had famously said women would never compete in the UFC, and then she headlined a card and became one of the promotion’s top draws within a year. Her fights drew television audiences and pay-per-view numbers that rivaled the men’s division, and she became a fixture in mainstream sports media, landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and appearing in the SI Swimsuit Issue in 2015, the first MMA fighter to do so.

What Happened to Ronda Rousey? The run ended in November 2015 at UFC 193 in Melbourne, whenHolly Holmknocked her out with a head kick and follow-up punches in front of 56,000 fans, the largest crowd ever to watch a UFC event at the time. Rousey did not fight again for over a year, and when she returned at UFC 207 on December 30, 2016, Amanda Nunes stopped her in just 48 seconds with ground-and-pound.

She never officially announced her retirement from MMA, but she never fought again. In a 2024 Instagram Live session ahead of the release of her memoir Our Fight, Rousey revealed that a long history of concussions, many of which she had kept secret during her judo and MMA career, had made it impossible to continue competing at the top level. “I just couldn’t fight at that top level anymore, and I couldn’t take those impacts,” she said, adding that her exit came at a time when she had “never been stronger or faster.”

Source: LowKickMMA.com