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One current UFC champion thinks Ronda Rousey is a sellout for joining WWE.

In an interview Monday with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, UFC bantamweight champion Julianna Pena said, “She’s kind of a joke in the MMA world now because she’s a — what is the word? — sellout.”

This statement came just two days after Rousey suffered a loss at WrestleMania to Charlotte Flair. However, these comments aren’t too surprising. Pena told The Post in January that she and Rousey did not get along during her victory as part of Miesha Tate’s team against Rousey’s team on the Ultimate Fighter in 2013.

It appears that bad blood remains.

“[Rousey] was destroying people in 10 seconds, and became a star because she was demolishing people in the first round, and that’s great,” Pena said. “But she got knocked out twice and never came back.”


  Ronda Rousey during her match at WrestleMania 38 on April 2, 2022. WWE Ronda Rousey during her match at WrestleMania 38 on April 2, 2022. WWE

Pena even went on to say that she wants to fight Rousey in the UFC.

“She had to go to pro wrestling. And I get that and I think that that’s great. But as a fighter and somebody who is competitive, I know that — deep down — it probably truly bothers her, the fact that she went away off of two knockout losses and never came back to make her name good,” Pena told Helwani. “If it really truly does bother her and if it gets under her skin at the end of the day to know that, you know, her legacy is kind of ruined by the fact that she never came back and never got back on the horse, then I would like to invite her to please come back — and if she would like to come back, I would welcome her with open arms.”

The odds that Rousey would return to the UFC are slim as she makes big money performing in the WWE. Her last UFC fight was a 48-second loss to Amanda Nunes in 2016.

Pena’s comments about Rousey’s legacy in the MMA world aren’t unfounded. Even in 2016, the usually respectful Nunes and former UFC champion, Cris Cyborg, unrelentingly trolled Rousey on Twitter after she was TKO’d by Nunes in the first round.

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