Former UFC referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy doesn’t agree with the notion that everyone hated Ronda Rousey behind the scenes, but he believes the women’s MMA pioneer needs to face the truth when it comes to her losses inside the Octagon.
Rousey was, is, and will forever be one of the biggest names in combat sports history. After years of UFC CEO Dana White insisting that women would never compete inside the Octagon, it was Rousey who changed his tune, paving the way for women to step onto mixed martial arts’ biggest stage.
Unfortunately, as fast as her rise came, so did her fall. After dominating the competition under both the Strikeforce and UFC banners, ‘Rowdy’ hit a brick wall named Holly Holm at UFC 193. Rousey, like always, went into the bout as a massive favorite but was outclassed by ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ from the opening bell until Holm finished her off with a perfectly timed head kick less than a minute into the second round. A year later, Rousey was out of the sport completely.
Recently, Rousey has returned to the MMA headlines, making excuses for her last two lackluster appearances in the UFC and claiming that many of her biggest supporters, including longtime commentator Joe Rogan, turned on her after she was no longer collecting wins.
Ripping into Rousey during a recent episode of Unlocking the Cage on SiriusXM was Jimmy Smith, a former UFC and WWE commentator, who absolutely shredded ‘Rowdy’ while claiming that practically everyone in the promotion hated her.
“The people behind the scenes; camera people, audio people, the people you can push around and bully and talk down to, can’t stand your f*cking ass,” Smith said. “Everybody behind the scenes that had to put a mic on Ronda Rousey couldn’t stand her. I said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘She was a bitch to us from the moment she sat down to the moment she got up.'”
Former WWE commentator Jimmy Smith goes off on Ronda Rousey and gives insight into what it was like for people to work with her and that people behind the scenes couldn’t stand her.
(via @MMAonSiriusXM) pic.twitter.com/barvYzYDws
— Wrestle Ops (@WrestleOps) May 1, 2024
John McCarthy Reacts to More Excuses from Ronda Rousey and Claims That ‘Everyone Hated Her’
Reacting to Smith’s comments was referee-turned-analyst John McCarthy who weighed in on Rousey’s behind-the-scenes reputation and her ongoing status as a sore loser during an episode of his WEIGHING IN podcast with co-host Josh Thomson.
“Treat people the way you’d want to be treated and if Ronda didn’t do that, that’s on her, but the whole thing he’s putting out here that everyone hated her, no,” McCarthy said. “Everyone didn’t hate her. Let’s just be honest about that. When it comes to the losses, you lost. You got beat by someone who was better than you. That’s all there is to it. You can sit there and say, ‘Oh, I had concussions’ and things like that. A lot of fighters have had concussions, but on that night in Australia, Holly Holm was the better fighter.
“She had a better game plan. She executed things much better. She had you swinging at the wind and running into the cage. At times, she had you turning around to the point where she was able to give a head kick that knocked you out. You were hurt at that point anyway, but these are things that happened. Someone got the better of you and was the better fight that night and the same thing happened against Amanda Nunes.”
A year after her upset loss to Holly Holm, Rousey attempted to hit the reset button in a UFC 207 clash with ‘The Lioness.’ This time, ‘Rowdy’ wouldn’t even make it out of the first minute, suffering a 48-second knockout loss to Nunes.
“There’s always that changing of the guard and you should have enough respect for them and their skills to say you got the best of me,” McCarthy added. “Maybe on another night, I could change that around, but a lot of people have a hard time losing because winning is so important to them that the thought of a loss is like a death.”
Josh Thomson ultimately sided with McCarthy’s statement, adding that Rousey was never competitive with Holm and argued that she wasn’t mentally present against Amanda Nunes.
“She was never in those fights,” Thomson added. “Not to say anything otherwise would be absurd. She was never in the Holly Holm fight. She got beat from pillar to post. And the same thing with Amanda Nunes. It didn’t even seem like she was in that fight mentally at all.”
