It’s a good thing UFC decided to book Holly Holm against Miesha Tate for the first defense of her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship instead of waiting on putting together an immediate rematch against former champion Ronda Rousey as originally planned, as it appears Rousey has asked for even more time off from the UFC.
UFC President Dana White told Yahoo Sports that Rousey recently asked him to take time off to film the remake of Roadhouse and won’t be returning at the landmark UFC 200 event in July.
“The filming of the movie got pushed back,” White said. “She could do both, but the question is, should she do both? She could do both, but why should she? The filming is in a time frame where she’d finish before [UFC] 200, but it would be cutting it too close.”
Rousey was originally rumored to be fighting Holm in an immediate rematch of their epic UFC 193 fight, which saw Holm knock out Rousey with a brutal head kick at the record-setting event at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia last November. It has since been announced that Holm will instead defend the title for the first time against one of Rousey’s biggest career rivals, former Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Champion Miesha Tate.
The primary reason the change was made from Rousey to Tate for Holm’s first opponent was the fact that Rousey wasn’t going to be ready soon enough for the fight, however it was always believed that she would be ready to make her return to the Octagon at the UFC 200 show in July. When she asked for more time off due to the “Roadhouse” movie filming getting pushed back, it was clear that Holm would be on the sidelines without ever defending her title for the first time for longer than White was willing to wait, so he then decided to give Holm the fight with Tate that her team met with him about in early December.
As far as Rousey requesting a lengthier amount of time off from the UFC in order to accomodate her acting career, White noted that he had no problem allowing it because of how much Rousey has done for the promotion.
“The way I look at this one is, Ronda has worked her ass off for us for the last three years,” White said. “She’s been fighting, promoting and building the sport. If anyone deserves the time off, it’s her. The night [of UFC 193] Holly said she’d do the rematch and that Ronda deserved it and everything else. So we were holding it for her if she wanted to do it.
“What that woman has done is above and beyond what anyone has done. I mean, it’s just unbelievable what she’s done in the last three years. Anything we needed, she didn’t say no to anything; said no to nothing. She even took over responsibilities somebody else was supposed to have. So when she tells me she wants more time, you know what? She’s got it.”
