Ronda Rousey was born with her umbilical cord wrapped almost fatally around her throat but now has a stranglehold on female combat sports, a once untrodden path that she is at the forefront of forging.
Fighting remained the lone realm of sport where gender attitudes were stuck in bygone eras, as female athletes rued the lack of professional options for their craft, until Rousey’s emergence as the face of the UFC.
Mixed martial arts, once a sport consigned to the underground, has flourished largely thanks to the beauty and brawn of Rousey, the undefeated UFC champion whose evolution into Hollywood personality and Rolling Stone cover girl makes her one of the most recognisable combat athletes in the world.
But trailblazing a path into the UFC for women hasn’t been a seamless process and required Rousey’s fighting spirit throughout her life - long before it was utilised inside a cage.
The first fight she won was surviving a difficult birth, although the damage resulted in a severe speech impediment during the Californian’s formative years resulting in a shyness that belies the grand stage on which she now revels.
Her father took his own life when she was eight-years-old due to a critical illness developed after an accident, so Rousey immersed herself in judo – the sport in which her mother had become the first American world champion.
Her muscular arms were the source of mockery in her teenage years and, to this day, she refrains from the tradition of flexing at weigh-ins before a big fight. At 17, she was the youngest judo competitor at the 2000 Olympics before she won a bronze medal four years later in Beijing.
Rousey's recent autobiography My Fight/Your Fight recounts a difficult post-Olympics period where she bemoaned the lack of professional avenues for her sport, a brutal realisation for female athletes in many fields.
Disillusionment caused Rousey, forced to work as a barmaid despite her Olympic medal waiting at home, to surrender briefly to life’s temptations until an exciting new sport grabbed her attention.
The UFC was catching fire – mixed martial arts is a one-on-one fight allowing competitors to utilise a variety of skillsets with judo being one of them. While women had been fighting at less heralded organisations, UFC president Dana White had been vocal about his lack of appetite to watch women hurting each other.
Initially for meagre income, Rousey debuted in the new sport four years ago and racked up six dominant victories and a rivalry with Miesha Tate that illustrated the theatre of combat sports so often enjoyed in male competition.
Two years ago, she stepped inside the UFC’s Octagon as the first female competitor and a trademark armbar submission forced Liz Carmouche to quit and confirmed Rousey as world champion.
The Las Vegas-based UFC, 10th in Forbes’ list of valuable sports brands last year, now rates Rousey as its most popular athlete, showcasing her fights only at their most lavish events. Such is her dominance, her last three opponents lasted only 16, 14 and 34 seconds, respectively.
Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone ventured into unchartered territory to feature her on the cover, and film appearances in The Expendables and Fast & Furious plus a WWE WrestleMania appearance alongside The Rock have increased her star power beyond sports.
Yet the 28-year-old’s greatest achievement, despite her glistening gold championship belt, remains pioneering and opening doors for future female athletes to enter a sport, and subsequently build their own brand, that was never previously an option.
Ronda Rousey defends her UFC women's bantamweight title against Holly Holm at UFC 193.