In the weeks leading to her fight, Ronda Rousey has had several distractions in camp. Between her boyfriend Travis Browne outing their relationship, to her mother trashing her coach, to that very coach filing for bankruptcy, the world’s most recognizable MMA fighter hasn’t had the smoothest go of it this month.
Things didn’t get easier when major media outlets picked up a story from her book My Fight/Your Fight, where she claims to have beaten up an ex-boyfriend that she caught snapping nude pictures of her without her consent. According to Rousey, she tried to leave, and the boyfriend prevented her from doing so.
You can read her passage about the physicality that followed below:
“I punched him in the face with a straight right, then a left hook. He staggered back and fell against the door,” Rousey wrote. “… I slapped him with my right hand. He still wouldn’t move. Then I grabbed him by the neck of his hoodie, kneed him in the face and tossed him aside on the kitchen floor.
Rousey addressed the issues when speaking to media prior to this weekend’s UFC 193 event.
“Legally, if somebody blocks your exit, it’s considered kidnapping,” Rousey said to reporters. “I was in that situation before when I got in a fight at a movie theater and my exit was blocked and people wouldn’t let me out. Legally, you cannot do that. It’s considered a self-defense scenario, so if someone is blocking you in an apartment and you can’t leave, you’re entitled to defend yourself and find a way out.”
Rousey also stated in her book that even after the altercation, the boyfriend followed her to her car and jumped in her passenger seat. She pulled him out of the car and left.
“If you’re trying to get into your car and leave and they’re grabbing your steering wheel and saying that you can’t leave, that’s technically you being kidnapped and you can defend yourself in any way it’s necessary,” said Rousey.
Domestic abuse is a heavily covered issues, and one that piqued the interests of both fans and foes of Rousey because of outspoken she’s been against Floyd Mayweather for his past. After winning the ESPY for Best Fighter this year, Rousey said “I wonder how Floyd feels being beat by a woman for once.”
Rousey also said during the scrum that the incident regarding nude photos is what motivated her to do ESPN’s Body Issue, so that the photos would come out on her own terms.
