Ronda Rousey Rips Into Hunter Campbell Before MVP Main Event Saturday Night

Ronda Rousey (12-2 MMA,) the former and inaugural UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, entered 2026 without a return to competition in the sport of MMA in her mind. The plans were altered in February when it was announced that she'd be entering the cage for the first time in close to a decade.

This coming Saturday, Rousey will be fighting Gina Carano (7-1 MMA) in the main event of the first-ever MMA card to be presented by Jake Paul's Most Valuable Promotions. MVP MMA 1 will be streamed globally via Netflix over the weekend.

Main card action caps the show, including Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano, at 9 pm ET/ 6 pm PT after the undercard at 6 pm ET/ 3 pm PT on the TUDUM YouTube channel. Rousey's fight versus Carano will be her first under MMA rules since Dec. 30, 2016. That Friday night, she headlined UFC 207 versus Amanda Nunes (23-5 MMA, 16-2 UFC,) with the latter scoring a first-round knockout victory in 48 seconds to spoil her bid to reclaim her belt.

Ronda Rousey Appears on The Ariel Helwani Show to Talk Upcoming Fight

During the Monday edition of The Ariel Helwani Show, aired on-location from Los Angeles, not far from Inglewood's Intuit Dome, the setting for MVP MMA 1, Ronda Rousey was interviewed by Helwani. During the segment, she discussed how her return this coming Saturday night came to fruition.

"This surprised me," Ronda Rousey began, "just as much as I think as anybody else, and it literally just happened completely organically. I think that it's how it had to happen and it's really just because of Gina. I came to the sport because of Gina, I came back to the sport because of Gina."

Saturday's card will take place one week removed from UFC 328 in Newark, NJ, an event with a fair amount of intensity leading up to the headlining fight between Sean Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev. Earlier this week, Rousey's initial faceoff with Carano was the reverse of what happened in New Jersey, something that "Rowdy" is thankful for.

"This has been Rousey-Carano," she said. "We're bringing the humanity back into it and that's what I really loved."

Ronda Rousey on Returning to Action Saturday

During her hiatus from MMA competition, Ronda Rousey turned her attention to the world of sports entertainment, holding the RAW Women's Championship from Aug. 19, 2018 to April 7, 2019, spanning 231 days and breaking the record held by Alexa Bliss for longest reign as RAW Women's Champion, before losing it to Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 35.

Lynch would, in turn, break Rousey's record by holding the RAW Women's Champion for 399 days, finally dropping it in May of 2020 due to her maternity leave. While Rousey returned to WWE in 2022, she said that she's happy to get back to a real fight

"I think all fighters that truly fight have something in them, that we need that venue to be able to unleash ourselves, that we're constantly holding ourselves back in proper society," Rousey mentioned. "There's something in us that needs another adult in the room. I need that referee in that cage to stop me from going too far."

Ronda Rousey Delivers Harsh Words About Hunter Campbell

While her tone regarding her opponent and about fighting again was happy, Ronda Rousey was far less cordial when the topic of discussion shifted to Hunter Campbell, the UFC's Chief Business Officer. Initially, Rousey was hopeful that her return bout against Gina Carano would happen under the UFC promotional banner, but the suggestion was rejected by Campbell.

"With Hunter, it was personal because he was a (censored) asshole about it," she said. "He was just being such a chauvinist (expletive deleted,) and he was being so dismissive and just trying to get me and Gina to value ourselves less from the get-go and acting like this isn't the greatest thing that has fallen into his lap since he's been there."

Rousey said that age was a factor as to why this fight didn't happen in the UFC.

"He was like 'Oh, no, you guys are just so much older and I just don't know how it's going to do,'" she mentioned. "First of all, I didn't know who he was. He told me he's the lawyer that's going to come and show you your pay-per-view numbers. I'm like 'Fine, I don't care. I'm going to knock this out of the park.' I love having my pay be performance-based."

Ronda Rousey With Explosive Haymaker for Hunter Campbell

Rousey also mentioned that the UFC hoped to have her and Gina Carano fight for its women's featherweight championship. The UFC Women's Featherweight Championship has been a vacant belt since Amanda Nunes retired from competition in 2023.

"It's a way to retire the belt," she said. "Hunter's like 'Yeah, but then we can get rid of that division.' Just the way that he spoke of it, how dismissive he was, and like the disdain that he had for the fighters of that weight, I'm like, 'My husband's 6-foot-7. My girls are not going to be 135. This is what you think, like women that are higher than 135 lbs, they can't offer you anything?'"