Some people you love, some people you hate, and some people lie in that gap between the two extremes. Ronda Rousey, however, is not one of those individuals who has the luxury of not being hated nor loved; as is the case with most of the athletes who have reached Paramount’s status in their sports.
Think LeBron James and Kobe Bryant in the NBA, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in soccer, or Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in football. When people get to the level of performance and popularity that these athletes have reached, the world divides into two sides: lovers and haters. And Ronda Rousey has more than deserved her place in that plateau of world-class athletes.
Now, while she might have legions of fans and haters out there who live in anonymity, criticizing or declaring their love for her on online forums and social media, Rowdy Ronda has also tallied her share of famous haters as well as industry nemeses.
The world of mixed martial arts and fighting, in general, has no lack of people looking for feuds outside of the octagon or the ring. Most of those who decided to pick a bone against Rousey are colleagues in her UFC division, but they’re not the only ones who have made headlines criticizing Rousey. On top of her actions inside the Octagon, her critics have also had more than their share of criticism for things she did outside of the cage.
From domestic violence to destroying relationships, these are the top 15 people who hate Ronda Rousey.
15 15. Snappers McCreepy
Nobody really knows who this guy is, but many people have to thank him. Why? Because he is the reason Ronda Rousey decided to pose for the ESPN Body Issue. Yes, Snappers McCreepy, a former boyfriend of Rousey’s whose identity has yet to be discovered, played a crucial part in Rousey’s decision to go nude for the ESPN publication.
McCreepy, as Ronda calls him, took a bunch of naked pictures of her without her consent. But his snapper streak didn’t last too long as she found the pictures on his computer and went on to beat him up for it as she describes in her book. The odds are that Snappers probably had to spend a little time in the hospital. Ronda meanwhile had other plans:
“The first thing I did was take naked pictures for ESPN,” Rousey told the Opie Radio show on SiriusXM. "If it's going to get out there, then I want it to get out there on my terms.”
Now we are going on a hunch here to say Snappers is probably not Rousey’s biggest fan, but she has a better reason to hate him then he has to hate her.
14 14. Jenna Renee Webb
Top athletes should be role models for children, right?
Well, this is one of those instances in which Rousey’s actions couldn’t be farther from the actions of a good role model.
Jenna Renee Webb is a rather well-known figure in the online world. She is a successful model and according to her Instagram profile a barrel racer, but most notably for this story; she used to be the wife of UFC fighter Travis Browne. And the reason that statement is in the past tense is Ronda Rousey.
It all happened in 2015 when Webb and Browne were still happily married according to an interview he gave to the MMA hour. The problem was that while the fighter claimed his marriage was going peachy, he was getting peachy with Rousey on the side. One thing led to the next, and his wife found out about the affair, with the ultimate dagger to her heart coming when she figured out that Rousey had already been sleeping with her husband when this happened:
13 13. Bryan Caraway
This fighter’s feud with Rousey was more of a side effect of another feud of hers than anything else. Still, it had some pretty big repercussions not only in the MMA sense but also involved sexism, feminism, and a bunch of other stuff.
Before one of the bouts between Rousey and Miesha Tate, Caraway’s girlfriend, Rousey claimed she could beat both Tate and her boyfriend, which led to a few unpleasant tweets from Caraway responding a fan:
The fire from this feud has yet to fade away, as years later Rousey touched back on the subject during a Q&A when she was asked who she would most like to fight in the UFC if there were no restrictions.
"And then Bryan Caraway's really annoying. It would be fun to beat him up, but plenty of other people have gotten that pleasure before me, apparently,” she said.
12 12. Donald Trump
What is the 45th President of the United States doing on a list like this? It all began before he was President Trump, back when he was still a reality TV star starting on his path towards the presidency.
In an interview with CNN, Trump pledged his support for women who want to find the military, and he mentioned Rousey as a woman who could be a great fighter:
"Some of them are really, really good," Trump said. "I'll tell you what, I know some woman that are just — Ronda Rousey is an example, who likes me. ... I'd take her on my side as a fighter."
Well, it turns out she didn’t exactly like him.
"I mean, I wouldn't vote for him," Rousey said in another interview to CNN. "I just really wouldn't trust the guy with running my country, that's all. ... I'm not really going to get into specifics of it, but, I mean, I don't want a reality TV star to be running my country."
And as one might expect, ever since that day Mr. Trump and President Trump have not missed a chance to jab zingers toward Rousey:
11 11. Darin Harvey
Darin Harvey is a former manager of Ronda Rousey, and according to many people in the industry the person who knows her best. Now, what should everybody think when the person supposed to know you best says something like:
“I created a monster,’’ Harvey told USA Today. “She believed she was as special as the press made her out to be.
“They give me absolutely no credit for the success of her career. She’s not a good person. You don’t forget where you came from.’’
This is a man who clearly feels he was wronged when all he wanted to do was the best for his client, who apparently fired him after he refused to accept what Harvey called “Status quo” terms from the UFC when they were negotiating her contract.
Needless to say, he was nothing short of jubilant when Rousey lost for the first time against Holly Holm.
“In a sense it was poetic justice because she’s wronged so many people that were there for her at the beginning of her career,’’ he said. “To not be part of something I was instrumental in creating, has been very difficult.’’
10 10. Dennis Hallman
"I do think that Ronda has some sort of mental health issue. It's either that or she's severely immature. She acts like a 14-year-old boy trapped in a woman's body, always trying to make everything think that she's tough when really she's not sure of herself."
That was what Dennis Hallman had to say about an incident that happened during The Ultimate Fighter 18. The background was that the assistant coaches brought in to the show hadn’t been paid in a few weeks and Rousey decided to take their pains and lashed out at one of the show producers. According to Hallman, the producer tried to be helpful, but Rousey just told her to sit down, shut up and not speak while she was speaking.
Rousey, on the other hand, had a different story. She said that all Hallman was doing was plotting to have her coach kicked off the show and leave her team down a head coach.
9 9. Floyd Mayweather
“I wonder how Floyd feels [about] being beaten by a woman, for once.” That was what Rousey said when she received the 2015 ESPY for best fighter.
What she was referencing to was the well-documented history of Floyd Mayweather and domestic abuse incidents. And from that, the discussion went on to money, and as everybody knows how seriously Floyd takes his money, the whole thing escalated.
His answer to her domestic abuse question came in a later interview with ESPN, but Floyd didn’t actually respond to the question. Here’s what he said:
“I’ll just say that,” Floyd said, “I’ve yet to see any MMA fighter or other boxer make over $300 million in 36 minutes. When she can do that then, call me.”
What that has to do with domestic abuse, we don’t know. Later on, Rousey got to the point of calling Mayweather illiterate, and he answered in a statement made by one of his team members that said she would “never be at my status.”
Who’s right and who’s wrong, is up to you to decide. What we can be sure of is that these two absolutely hate each other.
8 8. 50 cent
We can’t be sure if 50 Cent hates Ronda Rousey or not, but it’s tough to imagine doing what he did to someone you like.
On the aftermath of the Rousey defeat to Holly Holm, 50 went on a spree on Instagram posting memes mocking Rousey. He claimed Floyd Mayweather told him to post everything, but the boxer denied it.
One of those posts mocked not only Rousey but also boxer Manny Pacquiao, portraying a Photoshopped image of the two of them knocked out on a bed with the caption “Netflix and chill.” Here is where 50’s claim Mayweather told him to post it makes some sense since those two are not people Floyd is particularly fond of.
Nevertheless, 50 still posted a couple of other pictures, one of which was a scene from Rocky and the other a meme of Bill Cosby saying:
“Hello? Can you please tell me what room Ronda Rousey is in and if she is still asleep?”
Not cool 50, not cool.
7 7. Laila Ali
With roots in comparisons and what-ifs, this is one feud that sure would be fun to see transferred from the sidelines to an actual ring. Someone one day decided to ask the daughter of Muhammad Ali, who happens to be an undefeated boxer with a record 24 wins, 21 by KO, and zero losses if Ronda Rousey could beat her in a fight.
“Of course not,” Leila Ali said. “She’s too much smaller than me anyways. She’s like the size of my daughter. My 3-year-old.”
That had to sting, and Ronda swung right back:
“If she wants to take me up on that, I’m around. She’s retired and has several kids. I understand why she’d think that because she has a size advantage, but if you saw my last fight, it had nothing to do with size or strength at all. That’s not how I beat people. So you can’t count having a size and strength advantage as having a real advantage against me.”
And ever since then, Laila Ali had something to say every time Rousey got beat up in an octagon. But we have yet to see either of them put in any work to solve their differences, preferably inside a ring or an octagon.
6 6. Cris Cyborg
One of the most publicized feuds in both men and women’s MMA is the one between Cyborg and Rousey. Looking from the outside, it’s easy to mistake their exchanges as if they were trying to build up a fight, hype it up more each year, which might even be what they’re doing. But some of the things Rousey said about Cyborg were just rough.
The Brazilian fighter tested positive for the use of PEDs and was suspended back in 2011. She did her time away from mixed martial arts as it was fit. But even after she returned, that doping shadow kept lingering over her like a rain cloud. And the person who threw that on her face was Rousey.
The then-UFC champ said she was willing to fight the one woman everybody thought could beat her, but only if she dropped a weight class, something that Cyborg always had trouble with, and something that Rousey said she wouldn’t be able to do because of steroid use. Who could not hate somebody who talks about you like that?
5 5. Bethe Correia
Another Brazilian on Rousey’s most hated list, Bethe Correia took trash talking to a whole new level before her fight with Rousey.
In the hype of their UFC 190 fight, she called the UFC champ a fake crybaby who turns to drugs when she loses and that she hoped Rousey wouldn’t kill herself after losing their fight. Now that might seem all within the spectrum of what fighters might say to hype up a fight, but what Correia said she didn’t know was that Ronda Rousey’s father committed suicide after a sledding accident that left him paralyzed.
Hopefully, she really didn’t know about that. Because if she did, that’s a level of trash talking that not even the likes of Chael Sonnen and Conor McGregor would dare to touch with a 10-foot pole.
4 4. Arianny Celeste
While Rousey has proven to be a beast inside the octagon, her fights outside of it are the ugliest ones. Take her feud with Arianny Celeste for example. It started back in 2012 after the two of them were amongst Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 list. On that occasion, Celeste ranked higher than Rousey, who still found it worth it to take a jab at UFC’s most famous ring girl.
“It would have been really funny if I’d beaten Arianny Celeste, because that would be like a triathlete coming along and beating the runners in a marathon. Like, ‘Ha-ha, it’s your job to show your t—–s – I do that better than you!’ Maybe next year. She’s only getting older, and I’m reaching my prime.”
There was no huge reaction from Celeste but a little while after that comment, Rousey took her criticism one step further and said fighters should get paid more than the ring girls.
Just then, Celeste answered. She kept her class when talking about Rousey's comments, but her indifference towards Rousey speaks volumes.
“I’m not going to talk about her because I’m not a fighter,” she said. “I’m not going to waste my time. I actually don’t talk about anyone. It blows my mind that someone who doesn’t even know me continuously picks on me. And that’s all I see her as: a big bully.”
3 3. Charmaine Tweet
Another fighter who has an old feud with Rousey, Charmaine Tweet never denied the bad blood between the two. According to her, the source of all of it is that Rousey wanted out of a contract they signed for a fight, but in order to get out of it, Tweet had to agree to the termination, which she didn’t.
In an interview before she fought at Invicta FC11, Tweet explained that the whole reason they have contracts is to prevent something like this from happening and that the source of the animosity between the two of them comes straight from that occasion.
“That’s why we sign a contract—so if a better offer comes along you don’t just jump out of it and take that better offer,” she said. “Things got a little heated when I wouldn’t let her out. So, that is where the animosity comes from.”
2 2. Paige VanZant
This one was just petty. All Paige VanZant had to do to warrant an angry and uncalled for verbal attack from Rousey was congratulate Holly Holm on her win over the former UFC bantamweight champion.
VanZant herself did little to return the favor after she was pretty much verbally assaulted by Rousey. All she said afterward was that she was shocked by the incident:
"It appears that I offended Ronda by congratulating Holly after her victory. The incident was very shocking and totally unnecessary."
According to Miesha Tate’s account of what happened, Rousey went after VanZant to give her a piece of her mind.
More recently VanZant told TMZ that the whole incident is already water under the bridge and she was even reading Rousey’s book My Fight/Your Fight.
1 1. Miesha Tate
She is the Frazier to Rousey's Ali, the Sonnen to her Silva, the McGregor to her Aldo; Miesha Tate is without a doubt Rousey’s biggest rival. And the grudge they hold against each other is equal if not larger than their rivalry.
From Rousey saying she could beat both Tate and her boyfriend, to their antics against each other when they were coaches on The Ultimate Fighter season 18, these two have enough bad blood between them to fuel a whole new division in the industry.
Inside the octagon, Rousey dominated both of the fights between the two of them. Nevertheless, as one would see fit from a nemesis, Tate was the first woman to survive more than a round fighting against Rousey.
Fight number three was supposed to happen at UFC 193, but the fight went to Holly Holm who ended up beating Rousey. And here is where things get interesting. After defeating Rousey, Holm lost the belt to Tate. Then both Tate and Rousey lost to the current UFC champ, Amanda Nunes.
Wouldn’t a third fight between the two of them to decide who gets another shot at Nunes be a classic in the making?