“Ronda Rousey, when she flew over here to Australia and lost to Holly Holm, she came straight from filming a movie. Got here three days before the fight, had a hard time making weight because of it, and the time difference — and you saw how that fight ended for Ronda,” Dana White recalled in an interview with Mark Bouris earlier this year, ten years after the famous UFC 193 clash. But it isn’t surprising that the fight is on the UFC CEO’s mind even after all this time.

After all, that fight was a momentous moment in MMA history– the first loss of Ronda Rousey‘s career. Until then, Rousey seemed nigh unbeatable. You will remember Joe Rogan tearing up talking about how good ‘Rowdy’ was and how she could beat some of the men in the UFC. Yeah, that is about as accurate a representation as any of how good people thought the Olympic bronze medalist was back then.

However, that fight was probably a bad idea from the start since she took it on short notice, which, apparently, is something White agrees with. But not Chael Sonnen, who, for some reason, took great umbrage to Rousey accepting that fight as a mistake. As well as, strangely, disagreeing completely with ‘Rowdy’s purse for that fight.

“If you’re a prize fighter, you’re out there to get a prize. And there was no $4.5 million, I don’t know that I buy that number as is, but there was no $4.5 million check waiting out there. So if that’s the one, and that was the call, I have a problem with that being called a mistake. But I just want to revisit this and ask you guys- is that accurate? Because if you’re coming from this perspective- that Ronda was called in and Ronda was short notice, and therefore Ronda was paid [$4.5 million] like I’m not actually, actually understanding it,” Chael Sonnen said on his official YouTube channel.

“Holly was given $1 million for that fight just by perspective. So if Ronda made five times more than her opponent it would seem as though the victim would be the opponent. Unless we’re not talking about that and we’re just talking about opportunity which is world title. Well, whatever Ronda did, there was going to be a world title because she was bringing it,” he added.

While we have not been able to find the exact Dana White interview Sonnen is referencing, multiple sources do claim that she indeed got $4.5 million for the Holly Holm fight. Taking a fight on short notice is always risky, especially since Rousey was also shooting a movie a few days before the fight.

This means Rousey barely trained for the fight, let alone get in a full camp. And it also makes sense for the UFC to pay Rousey more than usual, given all the risks she was taking, which her coach Edmond Tarverdyan, had warned her about.

Coach saw the writing on the wall prior to Ronda Rousey’s infamous loss

“I think we had like 28 or 29 days. It’s so hard for you to compete at that level in those circumstances,” Tarverdyan told ‘Dark Side’ in a recent interview. “So, I said, ‘Are you asking me should we fight, or did you already agree?’ And she said, ‘You know what I did already. For me it was difficult to balance all that.’ I told her sometimes it’s difficult to carry two watermelons at once. One might break and we don’t want that to happen.” 

But it did happen. Holly Holm, the +825 betting underdog going into the fight, caught Rousey with a fantastic head kick towards the fag end of the second round. Gone was the aura of invincibility and it was clear to everyone that the Olympian was human like the rest of her peers.

And that loss probably ended Rousey’s career. The judoka he would go on to have another fight– a first-round, hand-breaking loss to Amanda Nunes the next year. But this fight, where she looked tired and out of it in the very first round, was such a massive blow to Rousey’s image and even her own perception of herself that it seemingly ended her resolve to keep fighting.

What do you think about Chael Sonnen claiming Ronda Rousey taking the Holly Holm on short notice was not a mistake?