Reading Rousey is not an easy task
Former champion returns to the octagon Friday amid questions about her psyche.
LAS VEGAS — There’s a saying around combat sports that every fighter has a screw loose.
So, the intrigue of Friday’s UFC 207 main event at T-Mobile Arena is what’s bouncing around the mortal mind of the once invincible Ronda Rousey, and how the results inside the octagon will determine the future of one of the most prominent figures in the sport.
Venice’s Rousey (12-1) has admitted that she
slipped into the darkest of places after her head-kick knockout loss to Holly Holm in November 2015, even contemplating suicide.
Scheduling her return against a destructivepunching force in new women’ s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes of Brazil is the most telling test possible of how well Rousey has climbed from those depths.
Nunes (13-4) draws inspiration from the expected pay-per-view audience of more than 1 million that will watch her first fight since she landed 40 strikes on Miesha Tate before submitting her by chokehold in the first round of the UFC 200 main event in July.
The Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas has Rousey listed at almost a 2-1 favorite, a sharp drop from the double-digit odds her foes confronted two years ago amid talk of her invincibility.
“Why is Rousey favored? Reputation,” Westgate race and sports book director Jay Kornegay said. “It’s a tough fight to handicap because of what she’s gone through over the past year. I’m not exactly sure where her head is these days, but prior to [Holm], she was dominating, and you have to factor that in.
“Hindsight will tell us if she needed that break, or if she’s totally lost it.”
Although Rousey has turned in a phenomenal training camp, according to her trainer, she has given little insight into her mental state.
Rousey, 29, convinced the UFC to grant her unprecedented permission to skip all pre-fight and fight-week media obligations except for a mandatory official morning weigh-in Thursday before cameras and a later public session before fans. She and Nunes both weighed the bantamweight limit of 135 pounds.
At the morning session, she f lashed the same dramatic change of facial expression she did in August when a reporter who has covered her since her days in the fight organization Strikeforce greeted her as she exited her Glendale gym.
First, a smile — a glimpse of the younger Rousey, who scrapped for everything she has gained.
Drawing inspiration to overcome the damning effects of her father’s suicide, Rousey for years accompanied her judo-champion mother on car rides traversing Southland freeways while training in the sport and competing in meets.
Her 2008 Olympic bronze medal didn’t keep her from briefly living in her car, but Rousey’s spirit and conviction sustained her through bartender shifts and other odd jobs before UFC President Dana White saw her fight in person and changed his opinion about placing female fights in an organization she helped build into a $4-billion empire.
Rousey was such a good company person that she would not only take 30 extra minutes after a news conference to repeat what she was thinking after her many first-round victories. She also would find a way to add a personal compliment to her interviewer.
And she displayed such genuine compassion and kindness.
She once took the time to write by hand an extended letter of sympathy to a photographer after learning that his dog had died.
Have the effects of the Holm loss erased or diminished that?
The questions persist because that initial smile now converts all too frequently into a scowl of dislike, as it did while she brushed past a reporter at the gym in Glendale and like it did Thursday after she kindly greeted Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Officer Bob Bennett on the scale.
When she turned her eyes upward toward the cameras, there came a disdaindrenched stare, as if that attention she worked so hard to gain represents something toxic now.
Has Rousey tried to convince herself that the distractions of media obligations created the Holm debacle? Before the Holm bout, she provided similar cooperation before submitting Cat Zingano and knocking out Bethe Correia in less than a minute.
Is she unhappy with post-loss criticism in the mainstream press about trying to stand with a former pro boxing champion when she has taken time in the past to scold web reporters about the difference between them and traditional media?
That driven fighter who once slept in her car in Venice Beach now has to balance movie roles, conversations with bankers and talent agents and friendships with celebrities.
And her disposition raises the question: Would the Ronda Rousey of five years ago like this version?
What matters most now is the fight, a return to the closed door of the octagon where, 13 months ago, Holm pulled back the curtain on Oz.
In there, Rousey will be alone with only her thoughts and Nunes.
In her effort to conquer both, there’s no allowance for a loose screw.