Why did Ronda Rousey return to MMA?

Ronda Rousey made her return to MMA last Saturday night in LA, but it wasn’t for the UFC.  Instead of returning to the premier organization in combat sports, Rond Rousey was fighting for the upstart MVP MMA event organized by Jake Paul and Nakisha Badarian.  Rousey who last appeared in the UFC in 2016 where she suffered a shocking 1st round defeat to MMA icon Amanda Nunes after attepting to return from a devastating head kick knockout from Holly Holm.

Rousey made the return, however instead of fighting in the typical Bantamweight 135lbs division she moved up to Bantamweight to fight Gina Carano who was more than 240lbs less than 18 months ago.  Carano had not fought in any professional combat sports for over 17 years before deciding to lose the weight and make her return.

The match which featured one of WMMA’s top grapplers against a 44 year old striker with limited wrestling and jiu jitsu would expect.  Ronda needed only 17 seconds from start to finish to catch a kick, pass Carano’s guard directly to mount and secure the armbar submission.  The more than 15,000 fans–many of them given comped tickets left the arena disappointed at the matchmaking.

The opening 3 fights went to a decision, but out of the 11 fights, that was all.  Every other fight ended in either the 1st or 2nd round.  Winners on the night besides Ronda Rousey included Mike Perry over Nate Diaz, Francis Ngannou defeated Philippe Lins, Salahdine Parnasse defeated Kenny Cross, R0belis Despaigne wrecked Junior Dos Santos, Namo Fazil defeated Jake Babian, Adriano Moraes defeated Phumi Nkuta, Jason Jackson secured a KO over Jeff Creighton, David Mgoyan earned a decisino over Albert Morales, Aline Pereira earned a split decision over Jade Masson Wong and Brandon Jenkins secured a split decision over Chris Avila.

check out the full MVP MMA 1 event results here