Ronda Rousey looks back at fight with Gina Carano: ‘Perfect bookend to my career’

Ronda Rousey earned a big win over Gina Carano earlier this month and loved every minute of the experience. On3 recently spoke to the UFC Hall of Famer and asked her if the fight was everything she hoped for.

“It was everything I hoped it would be and more. It was just the perfect bookend to my career, and I feel like I’m just so ready to move on and look back fondly on the entire experience,” Ronda Rousey told On3. “And I think I actually made a great new friend out of Gina out of this, and hopefully we can find other things to work with together in the future.”

Rousey defeated Carano 17 seconds into the first round via submission. For Rousey, it was her first official match since December 2016, when she lost to Amanda Nunes for the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship. Carano, who at one point was called the “face of women’s MMA,” was competing in her first match since losing to Cris Cyborg in August 2009 for the inaugural Strikeforce Women’s Featherweight title.

Rousey has had her share of memorable matches in her career, but she explained why her bout with Carano stood out. “I think this is my favorite, experience-wise,” she said. “Just the promotion, the meaningfulness of it, the fight itself. I think I had to go through everything that I went through to be able to appreciate this as much as I do.”

Ronda Rousey talks partnership with Castrol

Now that Rousey has faced Carano, she is focusing her attention on her partnership with Castrol. The 39-year-old is a brand ambassador for Castrol EDGE Performance Premium Synthetic Motor Oil and appears in a new commercial and across social media channels.