Ronda Rousey gets brutally honest about dealing with dreadful neurological issues over the years: "I would basically go blind"

Years after walking away from the UFC, the organization's inaugural women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey has opened up about the disturbing neurological issues that haunted her through the final stretch of her combat sports career.

Fans and pundits assumed that those were signs of a declining fighter when, in fact, those were symptoms of a deeper problem. Rousey revealed that she would get hit and go nearly blind mid-fight, losing depth perception and the ability to react.

She was also stuck in a feedback loop of migraines and neurological misfires triggered by bright lights and head trauma. Moreover, her family history of epilepsy only made things worse.

Speaking in a recent episode of the UNTAPPED podcast, Rousey said:

Get the latest updates on One Championship Rankings at Sportskeeda and more

"I’d get hit and I’d basically lose big chunks of my vision and my depth perception and my ability to track movements quickly and make snap decisions, which is basically all the things that I need and I thought I have a concussion, I’m out on my feet, but I wouldn’t be stumbling around. I didn’t lose my balance. This was like, I had to retire because this kept happening to me more and more often to the point where I would get a jab and I would basically go blind." [H/t: MMA Fighting]

She added:

“[The doctor] said what he thinks is happening is these impacts, now because of all the concussions, are setting off these migraine events, which is like my neurons get overly excited and then they shut down. So it could be a game changer because there could actually be some solutions to it. Before I was like, ‘Oh, it’s just inevitably declined and I inevitably declined until I was shitting my pants. Great. This is my life now.’ I was like, I need to stop this or else I’m just speeding this up.”

Check out Ronda Rousey's comments below (27:00):

---

Ronda Rousey finds closure after stepping away from fighting

Ronda Rousey walked away from the sport after two brutal losses, but her legacy was already sealed. She began her MMA career with 12 straight wins and six UFC title defenses, dominating most opponents in under a minute.

After retiring in 2016, she transitioned to pro wrestling and found success with WWE. Now 38, Rousey is focused on her health, consulting specialists to manage long-standing neurological issues. Shedding light on finding peace with moving away from the sport in the aforementioned episode of the UNTAPPED podcast, Rousey said:

“Now that I’m kind of getting some help in diagnosis and stuff like that, I’m much more hopeful than I’ve ever been and instead of just being like, ‘OK, this is just part of it, I’ve just got to walk away before it gets worse,’ possibly there’s something I can do to make it better. I just didn’t have this information back then. I didn’t know what to say other than there’s something going on with me and I can’t fight anymore because of it.”

Follow One Championship News, Schedule & Results at Sportskeeda.

Edited by Abhishek Nambiar