March 10, 2026; Inglewood, California, USA; Ronda Rousey speaks during the press conference for her MMA featherweight fight at the Intuit Dome. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano could have fought each other on UFC pay-per-view, but Rousey said she “had no intention of doing that.”
But Rousey did not shy away from sharp criticism aimed at TKO Group, the publicly held company that currently owns the UFC.
Rousey and Carano attended a press conference Tuesday to promote their Netflix MMA fight, which took place on May 16 in Inglewood, California. This fight is under Jake Paul’s most valuable promotion banner. Rousey left the UFC after 2016 and returned to mixed martial arts after a brief break from WWE.
Rousey explained on Tuesday that she proposed the Carano fight to UFC CEO Dana White as the final pay-per-view event before the UFC switches to a new streaming deal with Paramount. White suggested a new year, but Carano said he needed more time to reach peak fighting condition.
“I think it was fate,” Rousey said. “It was meant to be. It was meant to push us to the other side.”
That’s because Rousey had a bone to pick with the UFC’s new owners. She was happy to do so, saying on the microphone on Tuesday that “they need to be saved from themselves” and criticizing the low salaries of most of the promoted players.
Rousey added that White was “legally held in trust by his shareholders and maximized shareholder value” and that TKO “took the reins of the company away from him.”
“The UFC used to be the best place to be in combat sports to make a living and get paid a fair wage, but now it’s become one of the worst places to go anymore,” Rousey said.
“This is why so many top athletes leave to go and find money elsewhere. It’s why champions like Valentina (Shevchenko) sell t-shirt photos on OnlyFans. Many of these people are grounded and can’t even support their families. They are fighting full time, living at poverty level.”
The UFC set a new precedent by signing a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with Paramount for live rights, which Rousey emphasized while advocating for higher pay for fighters.
“This company just got $7.7 billion. There’s no reason, for example, that they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage, so that it can at least match what these athletes are making in other sports,” she said.
“Why would they expect to bring the best fighters and the most ambitious kids who want to be something into MMA? Why not boxing, soccer, any other field? So they’re shedding talent because of short-term greed. They’re thinking about the next quarter, they’re thinking about shareholders, but they’re not thinking about their responsibility as stewards of the future of the sport.”
Rousey, 39, won her first 12 MMA fights and captured the UFC women’s bantamweight belt before losing her last two to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
Carano, 43, is 7-1 in his MMA career and has not fought since 2009.
–Field level media
