Getty

Ronda Rousey UFC

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey bashed her former promotion for not promoting her fight against Gina Carano.

Rousey returns following a nearly decade-long layoff tomorrow night at MVP MMA on Netflix against Carano, who is competing for the first time since 2009. Despite the two headliners being 39 and 44 years old, respectively, it’s still a massive fight just because of the name value that both bring to the table. But that name value wasn’t enough for UFC president Dana White and UFC CBO Hunter Campbell to be interested in promoting the bout. Although White and Campbell had the opportunity for the UFC to promote this fight, they passed on it, and MVP MMA decided to sign the fighters and promote the fight instead.

Ronda Rousey Bashes UFC for Not Promoting Fight in the Octagon

Speaking at the pre-fight press conference ahead of Saturday’s MVP MMA event, Rousey said that she believes the UFC is regretting not booking the fight against Carano when they had the chance. She also gave props to her new promoters, who are reportedly paying their fighters well more than the UFC pays their athletes. Because the event takes place in California, we will find out the payouts for this event soon, and it will be interesting to see just what Rousey and Carano were paid.

“I think they’re regretting not making it happen now because there’s no way that they could have seen how this one fight would reverberate to creating this entire card and being MVP into MMA and Netflix into MMA. I think because when I first sat down in that office and I was lactating, (UFC) didn’t think I was to be taken seriously. But I’m to be taken the most (expletive) seriously while I’m lactating,” Rousey said (via MMAWeekly.com).

“And I think it’s incredible that Jake (Paul) and Nakisa (Bidarian), they made a priority to put the fighters first and to give them, you know, more of the profit share. I actually get to see some of those numbers now and it’s incredible how giving they’ve been and how they really want to showcase the fighters first before anything else. They don’t want the brand to overshadow us. They want to showcase us.”

Ronda Rousey Not a Fan of Hunter Campbell, but Still Tight With Dana White

In the lead-up to this fight with Carano, Rousey has been extremely critical of the UFC, and especially Campbell, the promotion’s chief business officer and one of the matchmakers.

While Rousey has made her disdain for Campbell clear, she says she is still a fan of White and the UFC’s former owners, the Fertitta Brothers. But she is absolutely not a fan of the new ownership group, TKO, and Campbell.

“I would want to make something abundantly clear and that’s that I owe Dana and the Fertittas immensely and I’d be caught dead before you ever heard me say a bad thing about any of them. But my loyalty is to them and not the company they sold. And I do not owe TKO’s UFC a damn thing,” Rousey said.

MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano takes place on Saturday, May 16, at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. The main card begins at 9 p.m. ET on Netflix.