Ronda Rousey (dot net!)

well I fought in the kano cup yesterday. Was having a perfect all-ippons day up to the final. I lost in overtime by yuko.
my first thoughts coming off the mat:

I F****ing suck at judo

first match I had the U23 european champion. she was a lefty but kept switching right when outgripped. I threw her for a yuko with something I forgot. Then she hauled off and elbowed me in the side of the head. It’s the next morning and I still have a big goose egg there. Then after outgripping her and she switched right I came in for an ogoshi and then switched it to a kouchi and caught her for ippon.

Next match I had that Aguillar girl from Brazil for the third time this year.
And no joke I got thrown for ippon in the first few seconds. They called it waza-ari though, and I was just laying there in a pin thinking

I’m a f****ing idiot. I wanna go home.

A few seconds later I snapped out of it, got out of the pin, got up, they gave her a shido for passivity, and then I threw her for a waza-ari with a right sode. Jim said they robbed me out of another waza-ari before that, but I wasn’t so sure it was a score. While trying to keep my lead we were doing ne-waza and I had a hold of her arm and was trying to swing my left leg over her head to roll her over her side.
Then came the worst most sickening sound you can hear in judo:

POP!

I immediately knew what happened. I tore the LCL on my left knee. Whether it was totally gone or only partially torn I didn’t know.
I laid there on the ground grabbing my leg for a few seconds, but I was up by a koka, and just needed to survive the last few minutes and be through to the quarter finals. So again I snapped out of it and got up.
Thank God for creating adrenaline.
In the last minute or so I threw her for a yuko with a drop seo/osoto and followed up into a pin for ippon.

I gimped off the mat and had the Canadian physio look at it. She said I definitely tore my lcl and there was a lot of give in my left knee, but that there was an ending point, so she was pretty sure it was torn, but not completely through.
I asked her if I fought the rest of the day could I make it worse? She said yes I could make it a lot worse, but if she could tape it, it would help a lot.
My next match was like in 10 minutes and she had several of her own athletes to take care of. I decided to fight the quarter final, and if I won we would have time to tape it before the semi final. If I lost I was just gunna pull out of the tournament.

So the quarter final was a repeat of my first round at the worlds, with half a knee I had to fight the Asian games champion, and #1 ranked Japanese player, Asuka Oka.
Most of the stadium was cheering for her, but right from the start I almost caught her with a cross grip drop ouchi. One or two exchanges later I had my left hand on her right lapel, I grabbed her other lapel with my right hand to feed my left hand high on her collar, she must have tried to take me backwards because before I knew it we’d hit the mat.
I didn’t even know what happened, but somehow I threw her for ippon.

I guess that’s what it really feels like when you’re in your element, your body does all the work for you and there’s no thought process involved.

So then I had a while to rest and after the prelim matches were over, the Canadian physio took me aside and taped my knee (she did such a good job that its already the next day and I’m still wearing that tape on my knee). I really wish I took the trouble to ask her name, because she was incredibly nice to me when she didn’t have to be.

So then I’m sleeping on the mat waiting for the repecharge to finish and a crew of like 5 japanese volunteers come over to wake me saying “Rousey? Rousey? You’re next! You’re next fight!”

So I run upstairs, get my gi checked, (I knew they were gunna be really strict on gis at this tournament so I brought the most legal one I owned) and they sent me right out onto the mat.

There was a pretty big section of the crowd chanting “Wa-Ta-Na-Be! Wa-Ta-Na-Be! Wa-Ta-Na-Be!” (the name of the girl I was fighting)

First exchange I tried the cross grip drop ouchi again, I almost caught her, but when we hit the mat I rolled straight into an armbar. Unfortunately, as with a few experiences I’ve had with Japanese players, she wouldn’t tap. So I popped her arm out…bad. I actually felt really bad, I’d gone with this same girl at camps in 2004 and she was nice to me. But she knew the consequences of not tapping. We all do. But still, it never feels good purposely inflicting an injury on someone like that.

I was talking to the team manager about the difference between how my mother and I feel about finishing armbars when someone doesn’t tap. His theory to why that was, was when my mom’s generation was competing, the women didn’t have nearly the amount of respect as they do now. So then most of the women who fought in the 80’s where especially hard because they felt they had to prove to the men and everyone else that they were just as tough and had just as much a right to be on the mat as anyone.

So here it came, the final of the Kano Cup. I had the defending Olympic Champion, and 2x world champion Masae Ueno. She hadn’t competed outside Japan since the Olympics because I don’t think she’s #1 in japan anymore.
But anyways, We fought the entire match completely scoreless. I couldn’t do any ne-waza because of my knee, I couldn’t hook in and roll her off her stomach at all. A minute or two into overtime she caught me with a left ouchi for yuko.

I wanted to curl up and die. Even while writing this I’m kinda getting emotional, but I can’t describe the way losing hurts. I can only describe it as a huge weight on my chest that keeps pressing down harder and harder till I can’t breathe. And the whole time I’m crying the salt from it stings every bit of matburn on my face and I just wanna curl up and dissapear.

And that’s the closest I can come to describing what losing feels like to me.

I had several people from Nederlands, Great Britain, Cuba, Russia, Mongolia, ect, people I’d never met before today, come up and tell me how impressed they were. And half of me feels really elated by the fact that American athletes might actually start to be seen as real players and contenders.

But the other half just wants to be left alone, take a hot bath, and feel all the matburn sting at once.

Those kind of post-tournament aches and pains don’t bug me like they would during a camp or something. I just let it sink in and try not to think.

Because of my knee I won’t be able to do any of the training here. Right after I’m done writing this I’m changing my ticket to come home tomorrow. But hey, one good thing coming from this injury is I can sit on the couch and play Zelda on Dennis’ Wii for a while and no one will bug me.