Rousey states that it was a mistake by TKO to not let Dana White run things as he was.
May 16th, 2026, is the date that Ronda Rousey will make her return to MMA. She’ll be fighting Gina Carano at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, in a bout that is taking place under Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions.
A press conference took place on March 10th, and Rousey did not mince words about the UFC and its fighter pay. She mentioned that there are fighters on the roster who are living poverty-level lives while the UFC struck a $7 billion deal with Paramount. She stated that UFC is one of the worst places to go for fighters.
Rousey said UFC CEO Dana White is not running things how he wants to because he’s now an employee of TKO, which houses UFC and WWE. She feels TKO made a mistake by not letting White run the show as he was.
“It’s just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore… Dana (White) isn’t the owner and he isn’t calling the shots and he isn’t running things the way that he wants, because he’s an employee of the company… It was a big mistake of theirs to not let him just run things the way that he always has.
It used to be that the UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid and now, it’s one of the worst places to go. It’s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s why their champions like Valentia (Shevchenko) are selling pictures of their titties on OnlyFans. A lot of them at the ground-level — they can’t support their families. They’re living poverty-level fighting full-time. This company just got 7.7 billion dollars. There’s no reason that they can’t afford to pay their athletes a least a living wage.”
Elsewhere during the press conference, Rousey further elaborated on her tweet about the UFC’s White House card not being good.
“Oh, he (Dana White) knows the White House card sucks,” Rousey laughed. “He knows that they were pushing this for over a year and it fell extremely short of expectations. He was so upset about it, he was talking about a fight falling out the day before. I can guarantee you he’s not happy with it either.”
Co-headlining the Rousey versus Carrano card is Francis Ngannou versus Philipe Lins.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the original source with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
