UFC will honor it’s first women’s champion with a first in the history of the sport.
Ronda Rousey will be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame on July 5, becoming the first woman to receive the honor, the organization announced Saturday night.
For a time, Rousey dominated both the sport and the headlines — both as bantamweight champ from 2012 until 2015 and as winner of her first 12 professional fights, all by submission. She used that dominance to build a career outside of the ring, with roles in movies like Entourage and Furious 7. But her mystique took a hit with a surprise second round knockout loss to Holly Holm in 2015. A comeback attempt a year later ended in another loss, to Amanda Nunes.
A former judo champion and Olympic bronze medalist, Rousey is now wrestling with a career change in the WWE.
“There would be no women in UFC without Ronda Rousey,” UFC President Dana White said in a statement. “Ronda is an absolute pioneer who helped me personally, and a lot of other people, look at women in combat sports differently.”
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