Ronda Rousey had one more fight in Inglewood on Thursday before her return to the cage on Saturday, and this one came with words. Speaking at a press conference in Inglewood, Calif., Rousey answered Khamzat Chimaev after he criticized her comments about the UFC and how it has treated athletes. Her reply was blunt, personal and aimed straight back at the fighter who had gone after her on YouTube.
“I owe Dana (White) and the Fertittas immensely,” Rousey said. “I would be caught dead before you ever heard me say a bad thing about any of them.” She added, “My loyalty is to them and not the company that they sold,” then drew a line under the point: “I do not owe TKO's UFC a damn thing.” Rousey then turned her fire on Chimaev, calling him “Cleft-Lip Lincoln” and saying people ask about her and her fight because “no one gives a sh*t about his ineffectual wrestle-f*ck fests.”
The exchange lands at a moment when Rousey is preparing for an actual return to competition. She is set to face Gina Carano in Saturday's MVP MMA 1 main event at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., a booking that has already pulled heavy attention because of the names involved. Rousey said the fight is drawing interest because it is “so stacked,” and she argued that people are excited to see her compete again because she has a 100 percent finish rate.
Chimaev had previously criticized Rousey for questioning how the UFC treats its athletes, and he said on his YouTube channel, “There never would be no Ronda Rousey without the UFC.” Rousey’s response was framed as a defense of her history with UFC leadership rather than a broader attack on the promotion itself. But the choice of targets made the point hard to miss: she was not backing away from her comments, and she was not inclined to let another fighter define her relationship with the company that made her a star.
That matters because the fight week spotlight is not just on whether Rousey can deliver in the cage, but on how loudly she is willing to speak before she does. With Carano waiting Saturday and Chimaev already in the crossfire, Rousey has turned her comeback into more than a return date. It is also a public argument over loyalty, leverage and who gets to tell her story.
