TIME Magazine has just released its TIME 100 for the year — the list of the 100 most influential people in the world. And on that list sits Ronda Rousey, former UFC women’s champion and one of the biggest stars of the sport. 30 Rock creator Tina Fey has done the write-up for Ronda’s entry over on TIME’s site (and will star alongside Rousey in an upcoming movie called Do Nothing Bitches), but the really interesting stuff is in the video interview with Rousey.
“I hope people remember me as one of the greatest fighters that ever lived … but I don’t know if they will,” Ronda tells TIME, getting emotional. “I’m still grieving the person that could have won it all, but I have to live up to the fact that I’m not her. That’s just who I wanted to be, and instead I’m what I need to be for myself and everyone else.”
“I have this wall in my house, it’s right outside my bathroom. It’s all the good things I put up there, like little girl letters. Like the cutest, sweetest, most like adorable things, you know? And I’d tape them all over my wall, that’s my inspiration back to me. It’s like all the words from all those people that reached out to me that I’m somehow helping them and they’re really helping me back.”
But for all the positive messages Ronda receives, she also gets more than her fair share of negativity.
“I hear so many of the worst things anyone could ever even imagine to think to say about me every single day,” she said. “Thousands of times, all these people are constantly trying to reach me to tell me these negative things. People like to see people rise because they want to rise, but they like to see people fall because they want to feel like we’re human, like they are.”
It’s all motivation one way or another for Ronda, who’s return is rumored to be taking place on November 12 at Madison Square Garden.
“I’m coming back to win this title for the people that believed in me.”
