Watch Ronda’s Commentary on Her Very First Fights

Here at RondaRousey.com, we’ve amassed the most comprehensive database on Ronda to date and it just keeps building. Fans can follow her entire career and relive all of her fights from the UFC to the WWE. But there was just one missing: Ronda’s MMA debut.

Nearly two years to the day of the 2008 Olympic Games in China, Ronda made her amateur MMA debut at CFL: Ground Zero against Hayden Munoz. This dude couldn’t even pull it up on the internet at the time of the interview, Ronda had to give a video on a USB drive. Judo was her not-so-secret weapon (check out that ouchi gari) that snagged a blistering 23-second win and kept Ronda’s victories in the first round for the next three years.

“I probably had about eight people pull out at this point so Hayden was pretty awesome about taking this fight,” she said. “I passed over in the mount, she turned away which opened up the armbar. I was kind of like, ‘oh no.’ There was a while when I checked on people afterward but I really don’t anymore.”

For an extra bonus, we get flashbacked to 2004. Facebook just launched and Ronda was hitting her peak on the mats at the World Judo Junior Championships. Ronda went through a veritable Disney’s Epcot tour of countries in the tournament, drawing against Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Russia, then China’s Jing Jing Mao. It only took her four seconds to get the ippon with a drop ouchi gari.

“Look how brand new my black belt was. I got my black belt at 16,” she said. “I had a whole day to eat. My whole face was like an orb because they gave me like $750. I never got cash after a fight and I bought like $80 worth of chocolate.”

After a secretly injured Ronda successfully turned pro, Charmaine Tweet was only her second big fight. It could have been her Strikeforce debut had it not been for Tweet refusing to agree to let Ronda out of her contract. This argument and the door closing on Ronda’s literal meal ticket made this the first fight in her early career that had bad blood.

“I got offered to replace Gina [Carano]. This chick said that if I pull out of the fight and fight in Strikeforce that she’d sue me. I was extremely upset,” she said. “I never really say anything mean to my opponent’s afterward, but she’s the only one I ever did. I had to work several more months and three jobs because she wouldn’t let me go fight.”

It wouldn’t be until her next fight that she’d get Sarah D’Alelio, the same person who Ronda would have been matched up with had she replaced Carano. The rest is history and that history is recorded all on this site.