Dana White says the UFC had no women’s division until Ronda Rousey talked her way into it, and he means that literally.
The UFC CEO went on Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast and told the story again. He said he was against putting women in the Octagon for years. Then Rousey cornered him at an event and changed his mind before she had used up the time she asked for.
“Ronda grabbed me at an event and said, ‘Hey, I’m Ronda Rousey, can I get 15 minutes with you?’” White said. “We went into my room at the arena and minutes into the conversation, I’m like, ‘Holy sh*t, I think I’m going to do this, and she’s the one to do it with.’”
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White said his resistance came down to money. He was already struggling to sell male fighters to TV networks and sponsors who found the sport too violent, and he figured women would be an even harder pitch. Bloody Elbow pointed out that in 2011, asked when the UFC would start booking women’s fights, White said it never would. About a year later he signed Rousey.
He also wasn’t shy about what sold him. “She came in with the whole fcking bravado. You want to talk about a chip on your shoulder. I mean, she had it,” White said. “So many people now want to hate on her. She is a fcking unicorn.”
Rousey was one of four names White put in a class of their own on the show, next to Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Chuck Liddell, though White specified he meant Liddell in his prime.
The Résumé That Backs It Up
Rousey had two pro fights when Scott Coker signed her to Strikeforce. She won the Strikeforce bantamweight title there and came to the UFC in 2013. On Feb. 23, 2013, she headlined UFC 157 against Liz Carmouche and won with a first-round armbar to become the first UFC women’s bantamweight champion. She defended the belt six times, still the division record according to Yahoo Sports.
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The ending was rough. She lost the title in her seventh defense, sat out a year, then got stopped by Amanda Nunes in the first round at UFC 207. She never formally announced her retirement. She went to WWE, won several championships there, and later became the first woman inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.
She hasn’t drifted out of the conversation, either. Former welterweight title challenger Dan Hardy recently said White’s time in MMA may have passed, and he floated Rousey as someone who could go after the top job one day. “I could see Ronda going for it,” Hardy said. That’s Hardy’s speculation. Nobody has announced anything.
Quick Take
Credit White for answering straight. He could have dressed this up as some visionary plan. Instead he owned up to the 2011 brush-off, admitted the reason was sponsors getting squeamish, and admitted one fighter with a chip on her shoulder beat him in a back room at an arena. Every women’s division the UFC runs today traces back to Rousey’s 15-minute ask, which she didn’t even need all of.
