Former NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler and former UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion/Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey were once a part of the UFC Ultimate Fighter 18.
Rousey was Baszler’s coach on the reality show and Baszler did some trash talking as TUF 18 neared its conclusion.
“We were on The Ultimate Fighter for seven weeks,” Baszler said during a Jessamyn Duke Q&A session (via Alexander K. Lee of MMA Fighting). “We trained every single day, twice a day, and that was the only thing we had to look forward to. There was nothing in the house, no entertainment, no books, no music, no magazines, no computers, no TVs, it was horrible. And training every day, twice a day. We were on the last training session, like the show’s wrapping up, we know it, we were all antsy. It was like The Shining, everybody’s going crazy just being locked up, and we’re rolling. Ronda and I are grappling. It’s like the last training session, the show’s gonna be over, we get to go home, we’re grappling, we’re grappling, and I look at the clock. Rounds are, like, five minutes... I look at the clock and there’s two minutes left. I was like, ‘Well, well, Ronda Rousey, looks like I made it through the entire season without getting armbarred by you.’”
Baszler and Rousey are part of The Four Horsewomen of MMA, but this time of TUF 18 was back before the group gained popularity.
The former UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion would make Baszler pay for her comments.
“In the next two minutes, I got armbarred probably seven times. Seven or eight times,” said Baszler.
While Rousey finished the majority of her professional MMA fights with arm bars, it seems like there were plenty of more arm bars than what the record books recorded.
