There was already a lot of chatter regarding Ronda Rousey crossing over to this sport or that, conquering pro wrestling and taking over boxing. That was before recent comments from the UFC women’s champion where she expressed an interest herself in these things, saying…
“I would want to retire from MMA as one of the greatest of all time, I would love to have the chance to be the boxing world champion, and I would love to have the chance to be a jiu-jitsu world champion. I’d love to have the chance to be the Divas world champion and just be the best of everything at one point.”
Is this just talk or is Rousey serious? There’s certainly a lot of signs that she means what she says – Ronda has never been one to shy away from ambitious goals. Just last week she showed up on the cover of Ring Magazine, boxing’s most prestigious publication.
That rustled a lot of boxing fan jimmies, but one particular boxing personality is completely down with it. Here’s Oscar De La Hoya talking about the cover:
“I think it’s wonderful. I think she deserves it and obviously it opens the door for the women in boxing. We’ve created so much attention with it worldwide which has given Ring Magazine the attention it has never had in it’s existence. So now what do we do with it – how do we capitalize after having her on the cover? I’ve had some really big ideas for women’s boxing. I’ve promised the women boxers that Golden Boy is going to get involved with women’s boxing so we have something brewing and this is the beginning. It’s created a lot of buzz in the boxing industry so mission accomplished.”
As for Ronda making the leap to boxing, he had this interesting quote:
“We’ve discussed it and whenever she’s ready to step into the ring as a boxer then Golden Boy Promotions will be right there with her.”
Well that is exciting. Golden Boy is one of the biggest boxing promotions in the world, and if anyone could steward Rousey’s career towards her goal of being a champion, it’d be them. Not that the UFC would let her compete in boxing and mixed martial arts at the same time. But note what Ronda said – she wants to retire from MMA one of the greatest of all time, then do all these other things. A few more wins and she might be there, and then you’ll be glad whatever you do doesn’t involve some sort of championship belt or she might be coming for you, too.