Dana White says Ronda Rousey was the only UFC fighter to have an ‘aura of invincibility’ like Mike Tyson.
Ronda Rousey was a force to be reckoned with in women’s MMA.
The former bantamweight champion steamrolled through her competition and, from 2013-2015, finished all but one of her opponents in the first round.
‘Rowdy’ was considered one of the most dominant female athletes of all time, being compared to the likes of Mike Tyson for her string of first-round finishes and even being hyped as good enough to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a street fight.
That hype train came to a screeching halt at UFC 193, when Rousey was outclassed and brutally knocked out by Holly Holm, losing her bantamweight title and reputation as the baddest woman on the planet.
Rousey, 30, never seemed to recover. The former champ returned to the Octagon against current champ Amanda Nunes but succumbed to a barrage of punches in the opening 40 seconds, losing via first-round TKO.
Following her second consecutive knockout loss, Rousey shunned the media and looks to be retired, but Dana White believes her presence in the UFC is as strong as ever.
Irish sensation Conor McGregor, who is scheduled to take on Mayweather in a 12-round boxing match on Aug. 26, is now the UFC’s flagship star but White says Rousey will always be the Mike Tyson of MMA.
McGregor, White says, is a ‘different’ kind of star.
“Our Tyson was Ronda (Rousey), man,” White told Tyson on his debut podcast, Bite the Mic. “Ronda had this aura of invincibility that we’ve never seen before. That’s why everyone was calling Ronda our Mike Tyson because she was the most dominant athlete on the planet. Conor (McGregor) is different. Conor is completely different than a Tyson – his verbal game, his picking the round.”
Rousey, who looks to have left MMA for good, could transition to the world of professional wrestling. According to legendary WWE commentator Jim Ross, Rousey and the WWE is a ‘match made in heaven’.
McGregor, who has been compared to Muhammad Ali, will take on Mayweather on August 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.