Dana White, the president of the UFC, has no doubt that Ronda Rousey will be back stronger than ever after the first defeat of her career last UFC 193.
Rousey, who has now a record of 12-1 MMA and 6-1 UFC, has lost her UFC bantamweight belt in a very unexpected bout result last Saturday during the UFC 193 event held at the Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia. The long reigning bantamweight champ has held onto to the belt for the last three years, until Holly Holm came. Holm, who has an impeccable record of 10-0 MMA and 3-0 UFC, has managed to throw a perfect head-kick which threw Rousey down to the mat and ultimately ended the fight.
Rousey was at the peak of her stardom before UFC 193 with getting numerous awards and recognition for exceptional mixed martial arts fighting skills. In fact, she has been named as the UFC’s biggest star to date. Even though Holm was able to get the belt from her, Rousey still remains as the most recognized female athlete not just in the UFC, but in the whole sports industry.
Even though Rousey wasn’t able to fulfill her long-term goal, which is to retire from MMA with still the belt on her waist and a flawless record, Dana White revealed that this loss has not tainted Rousey’s accomplishments or legacy one bit.
“In this sport, and we say this all the time that there’s so many different ways to win and lose – it’s so hard to be perfect in this sport. To go undefeated and go on these long runs for 10 years like Jose Aldo or as long as Anderson Silva did or as long as Ronda Rousey did, it is hard to be perfect every time you go in there. I don’t care how good of an athlete, how long you’ve been competing, not everybody jumps out of bed every day and feels perfect 
and feels good. … It’s just not possible for that to happen all the time.
“That’s why when people go on these undefeated runs in this sport, they are f-cking great. They are truly great. Then you take all the things about physically not being perfect, then add the pressure and the workload that gets put on you when you become a UFC champion. Ronda Rousey did it better than anybody’s ever done it. The amount of work and the time she put in, how hard she trained, the things that she would do. She didn’t become a huge superstar the way she did for no reason. She worked at it. And you see Conor (McGregor) work at it. These guys that can go on these long runs are very unique individuals,” Dana White said during the post-fight conference.
White also emphasized that even though Rousey has received a lot of criticisms in terms of her MMA fighting game plan, the focus for now should be on Holly Holm, who delivered a perfect performance.
“Holly Holm fought the perfect fight (Saturday) night. As you sit and just think about it and run it through your head, she fought the perfect fight. Ronda was a f-cking tornado, ripping through everyone in seconds, so you don’t get to see her full game or what she’s got, and (Saturday) was just craziness. It’s tough to sit back and look and game plan. And the other thing is, what are you going to do with Holly? Now you can look back and say, (Rousey) probably should have tried to grapple her, tried to double-leg her, get her in the clinch, take her down, do this, that and everything else. But that’s not Ronda. Ronda is, ‘I’m going to go out and f-cking bang with you. I’m going to try to throw you. If I get the opportunity I’ll throw you.’
“She just never got any opportunities. She got into a couple exchanges. She rocked Holly a couple times. She did. From what I remember seeing in the fight, I remember seeing Holly look like she got hurt a couple times in the fight by Ronda. (Holm) was on the outside and picking her apart with big shots – hit her with a big elbow one time, hitting her with hooks,” White added.
As for the much-anticipated rematch, White said the he wants to give Rousey space to recover for now. In fact, he doesn’t even want to mention anything about the rematch in the next 30 days. However, if the rematch does happen, White knows that Rousey will be more tenacious and dead-ready to get back in the octagon.
“She’s the mentally strongest f-cking athlete I’ve ever met in my life. When she gets over this loss, she’s going to be a savage. She was a maniac and a hard-worker when she was the best in the world. What’s she going to be like now that she lost?
“The thing that makes this fight great again is Holly Holm. Now everybody knows how talented Holly Holm is and that Holly Holm is legit and Holly Holm is a workhorse, too. Both these two are going to take the next few months, go back in, start working on sh-t, and they’re going to clash again. And this second fight will be f-cking awesome,” White said.