Following her aborted UFC comeback December 30, 2016 that left her technically knocked out merely 48 seconds into the first round, after a blazing barrage of punches on the floor courtesy of the winner #Amanda Nunes, #Ronda Rousey has pretty much kept aloof from the public both in real life and online. It’s understandable as her comeback had been over the year in the making, with plenty of recovery and training from her first loss career loss to Holly Holm, which also ended her 3-year reign as the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion. Even with all that preparation, she still lost; so secluding herself after giving a prepared post-match statement was expected.
Finally, after nine days we have a voice – or a printed quote rather – coming out of the total silence.
First "statement"
It was in the form of an Instagram post. There were no words from Rousey herself, but she did upload a caption of a quote from #JK Rowling, the celebrated author of the “Harry Potter” book series that formed the nucleus of the massive multimedia global franchise. A quick search reveals that this statement was the key point of a commencement address given by Rowling at Harvard University in 2008, which has since been kept in print under the title “The fringe benefits of failure and the importance of imagination."
The quote read: “And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
Rowling and Rousey
Rowling had taken that quote to describe her current state of mind when she set out to finish the first “Harry Potter” book, as at the time she was already reeling from having lost her mother, being divorced from her first husband just as she was caring for her firstborn child (following a miscarriage), a difficult prospect now that being a single parent had left her impoverished trying to make ends meet.
In her speech, Rowling had insinuated that if she had somehow gotten a stroke of good fortune during those trying times that would’ve made her life with her daughter more comfortable, then she probably would never have completed “The Sorcerer’s Stone." Thus it was her series of hardships that left her with all the time she need to finish her book, which would give rise to a literary legend.
In Rousey’s case, her epic consecutive UFC defeats even with a long break in between were taken as a sign by fight fans that maybe she, the first ever female fighter to sign on for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, must now contemplate retirement from the MMA scene. Her posting of Rowling’s quote could mean many things, not just a determination to soldier on in the UFC, but it all comes down to one thing: she’s not going down to stop here.
