Martial Law: A Q&A with Ronda Rousey

Ronda Rousey is on an impressive winning streak: she boasts an undefeated record in mixed martial arts, she is the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s reigning bantamweight women’s champion and she is one of the UFC’s top pound-for-pound female fighters.

But one fight she hasn’t won—at least not yet—is legalizing professional mixed martial arts in New York, the only state that still bans it. The state Senate has repeatedly passed legislation to allow professional competitions, which could boost revenue to the state, but opponents the state Assembly, concerned about violence in the sport, have blocked it.

Rousey spoke with City & State Albany Reporter Ashley Hupfl about the effort to legalize MMA in New York, her career in combat and female empowerment.

The following is an edited transcript.

City & State: Why do you think mixed martial arts should be legalized in New York?

Ronda Rousey: I’m here to try to get the bill passed in order for MMA to be regulated in New York. Just last year there were over 1,600 unregulated bouts, so all of those fighters had no medical testing, no drug testing, all the women fighters didn’t have any pregnancy testing so they could be fighting pregnant without their knowledge and none of the referees were educated by a commission in order to keep the athletes safe. Because of the lack of a commission, New York is the most dangerous place for anyone to do MMA and all 1,600 of those fighters in New York are fighting under the most dangerous conditions possible. This isn’t about keeping MMA out of New York. This is about making MMA safe because it’s already happening.

C&S: Now that Assemblyman Sheldon Silver is no longer Assembly speaker, is it more likely that the state will legalize MMA? How was your conversation with Gov. Andrew Cuomo on this subject?

RR: I have a really good feeling about this for many reasons and Heastie as speaker is one of them. It went great. Cuomo seemed very supportive of our cause and expressed the same amount of optimism that we have.

C&S: Earlier this year, you gained national attention for saying female MMA fighters should earn more money than the ring girls. Can you elaborate on that?

RR: It actually got clarified to me later that is not the case. I was led to believe that really incorrectly. The one thing I just wanted everyone to know is the distinction between a job and a career, and the female fighters have a career and the ring girls have jobs. I think it’s really great for women that in MMA we get to see the difference—that the female fighters get much more of the respect and the accolades and things like that and the ring girls, they want to help themselves make a living. Brittney Palmer is one of them. She used being a ring girl to pay herself through art school and is now supporting herself just through her art because of the opportunities given from that. I’m so happy for her and have respect for her. I was misinformed on that subject.

C&S: Do female and male MMA fighters have equitable pay? 

RR: Yes. I don’t personally look at everyone’s contracts but the way I’m paid is extremely comparable to the men. Within a couple more fights, I think, I‘ll be one of the top 10 paid of all time.

C&S: How did you get into mixed martial arts?

RR: My mother was actually the first American to win at the World Judo Championships and when she first started competing there were no women’s world championships for judo and by the time she retired, there were world championships for judo for women and she won them! But there was no world judo in the Olympics yet. By the time I competed, I was able to fight in both the World Judo Championships and the Olympics, but there were no women in the UFC yet and then we finally made that possible a couple years ago. It’s pretty ridiculous to me that MMA has been presented as a sport that promotes hate for women, because how can you say that about a sport that has a woman as the highest draw in all of it? I just headlined the Staples Center with women as both the main and co-main for the first time in history. We sold out the Staples Center and had amazing numbers—the best numbers I’ve ever had yet. Fighting isn’t a men’s thing—it’s a human thing and to say it is anti-women is I think an anti-feminist statement.

C&S: Do you find it MMA to be empowering to you and to other women?

RR: It’s definitely empowering. Everything in my life is less scary because I’ve fought and I think sports is a metaphor for life. The fearlessness and ambition that I have is all originated from what I learned from fighting.

C&S: In a fight in the ring, who would win: Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie?

RR: I don’t know, I don’t know. Heastie sounds like a great fight name. It has a ring to it so I would lean towards him. You never know though, that’s the thing about fights—you never know until it happens.