Ronda Rousey cast a scathing review of her former home, the UFC, during the press conference for her fight against Gina Carano streaming on Netflix in May. 

Rousey famously left UFC after sustaining back-to-back stoppage defeats to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, having carved her way to the top of the bantamweight division with an undefeated record until those points. 

Then, she made the jump to professional wrestling with WWE, though when she had left the promotion in 2024 she was less than complimentary of that company as well – which now co-exists with UFC as parts of TKO. 

And as she would attest to during the MVP press conference, no longer is she a supporter of the MMA brand she used to represent. 

“It used to be that UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly,” Rousey said. “It’s one of the worst places to go. It’s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s why they’re champions like Valentina [Shevchenko] are selling pictures of their t*****s on OnlyFans.” 

Rousey added, “These people, a lot of them at the ground level, they can’t support their families. They’re living in poverty fighting full-time. And this company just got $7.7 billion. Like there’s no reason that they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage.”

She said there was no reason for an aspiring athlete to look towards MMA as gainful, especially when compared to other sports. “They’re bleeding talent because of their short-term greed,” she continued. “They’re thinking about the shareholders and they’re not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the future of the sport.”