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Ronda Rousey says she considered suicide after loss to Holly Holm — VIDEO

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey momentarily contemplated suicide after suffering a knockout loss to Holly Holm and losing her belt in Melbourne, Australia, last November.

During a tearful interview on “Ellen,” which airs Tuesday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship star admitted the loss was emotionally devastating.

Rousey told host Ellen DeGeneres the realization she had lost for the first time in her professional career hit her hardest as she sat in the medical room receiving treatment.

“I was like down in the corner and I was like ‘What am I any more if I’m not this?’” the previously unbeaten fighter said in her first television interview since the loss. “I was literally sitting there and thinking about killing myself in that exact second I’m like, ‘I’m nothing. What do I do anymore and no one gives a (expletive) about me anymore without this.’”

The feeling was very brief for Rousey, who lost her father to suicide when she was 8 years old. She quickly realized her life had bigger meaning. Rousey said the sight of her boyfriend, UFC heavyweight Travis Browne, almost immediately made her feel better.

“To be honest, I looked up and I saw my man Travis was standing up there and I looked up at him and I was like, ‘I need to have his babies. I need to stay alive,’ ” she told DeGeneres. “Really that was it. I haven’t told anybody that.”

Rousey said the moment made her believe fate had brought them together.

“I think I’ve only told him that but that’s what I was thinking. I was meant to have him when I was at my lowest,” she said. “I don’t know if I would have made it without him.”

As for the details of her first mixed martial arts defeat, the former Olympic bronze medalist said she doesn’t remember most of it. She did tell DeGeneres that she was out on her feet after the first exchange and “wasn’t even there anymore.”

“I got clipped in the first exchange so I was knocked out on my feet like the first time I got hit,” Rousey said. “It’s hard to really know what’s going on. In that first hit I cut up my whole mouth and I knocked my teeth loose.

“It was weird. I had no perception. I felt like almost I couldn’t see. Like, I could see but I couldn’t tell how far my hand was from my face or how far was she from me. When you sit and you’re not moving, you’re still aware of where your body is. That’s like a part of your brain telling you where you are in space. It was like that kind of turned off. I was swinging blindly. I knew she was out there, but I really don’t remember most of it.”

She hopes for a shot at redemption. Holm will next defend the belt against Rousey’s bitter rival Miesha Tate on March 5, but Rousey is scheduled to fight the winner in late 2016.
Rousey hopes she gets a chance to fight Holm.

“Of course I want to fight Holly. I want to beat her and make everything right again,” Rousey said. “I want to be the one to beat her.”

She knows the narrative has changed on her career, but not her mindset. She entered her previous UFC fights as an untouchable force who often spoke of retiring undefeated.

While that dream was knocked out by Holm’s left foot, Rousey told DeGeneres being defeated is a choice and she refuses to believe she’s no longer undefeated.

Now Rousey, who has ventured into Hollywood with several movie projects in the works and recently hosted “Saturday Night Live,” has a chance to write a new script on her career.

“I did a lot of thinking like why did this happen? Why did this have to happen like this?” Rousey said. “I do believe all the best things come from the worst things. Every worst thing that happened in my life, results in the absolute best things and I’m trying to think what is the reason for all this? I’m thinking of what my actual purpose is and maybe just winning all the time isn’t what’s best for everybody.

“I feel like maybe my role, everyone has their moment of picking themselves off the floor and I’d gone through several of mine, but no one had actually seen me go through it. Maybe I just have to be that example of picking myself off the floor for everyone. Maybe that’s what I’m meant for.”

Rousey is doing media rounds for the first time since the loss as she is promoting her appearance on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She is also scheduled to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” on Tuesday night.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj

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