OUR FIGHT

An inspirational memoir by the mixed martial arts legend.

Rousey (b. 1987) was touted as an overnight success when she came onto the MMA scene. However, she notes, “‘overnight’ is what they call it when no one has been paying attention to the decades of time and effort you put into perfecting a craft.” That success endured for a few years but came tumbling down with a fight in 2015, when, owing to what she describes as neurological issues, she was finally defeated. Blending bravado with self-awareness, she writes, “I was perfect. Until I wasn’t.” The defeat haunts Rousey’s narrative, as she writes about how the loss was devastating enough that she contemplated suicide: “Physical pain I could deal with but the entire world I had created for myself crashing around me was too much to bear.” Then came a comeback, of sorts, when she signed with Vince McMahon’s WWE extravaganza and its heavily scripted matches, departures from which McMahon did not tolerate, as when Rousey refused to call herself “the women’s champion,” preferring simply “the champion.” McMahon’s characteristic response: “Get out of here with that woke bullshit.” Recent accusations against McMahon have led to his being distanced from his own organization, and Rousey is timely in corroborating many of the allegations. McMahon emerges as a decidedly unsympathetic character, more so than any scripted in-the-ring villain. Still, Rousey acknowledges that WWE will roll on without much wokeness entering the picture. Knowing that she couldn’t change the organization, she changed her life by walking away—and recognizing that she was fortunate to have the resources and family support to do so while many other fighters are “forced to keep going until their body falls apart.”

Fight fans not shocked by revelations of both malfeasance and artful choreography will take to this well-crafted memoir.