Ronda Rousey: Taking Steroids Does Not Make You A True Champion

Ronda Rousey knows what to takes to be a champion. At the age of 17, she became the youngest judoka to qualify for the Olympic Games in 2004. She would go on to win gold at the Pan American Games in 2007, silver at the World Championships in 2007, and bronze at the Olympics in 2008. 

Following her judo career, Rousey entered the world of MMA, where she won the Strikeforce and UFC Women’s Bantamweight Title. Now, she resides in the WWE, ruling the Raw women’s division as the Raw Women’s Champion. 

In her latest Q&A session for her website, Rousey was asked what it means to be a champion.

“A champion takes their task and puts it on expert difficult,” she said. “Plenty of people have used steroids and become champion. To me, that’s not a real champion. I was raised to be an Olympic champion. The Olympics is only one day, no matter what. They aren’t going to move the Olympics for you. If your goal is to win the Olympics, and you don’t know how you’re going to feel on that one day. It could be the worst day of your life. You’re going to train your whole life to be the best on your worst day in case that day falls on the Olympics. Why put that much effort into something in case you get lucky?”

Rousey continued, “I don’t want to be the best in the world on this one day. I want to be the best in the world every day I reign as champion. Some people get lucky. They have their best day at the right time and people that had no business winning happen to have their best day at the right time and things fell into place for them. That’s awesome. It’s very inspirational and could happen to anybody. Hoping to get lucky like that is not something I want to invest my happiness in. People like that enjoy winning more than I do. I want to train so hard that when I win, I’m not surprised.”

Rousey is scheduled to defend her Raw Women’s Title this Sunday at WWE TLC against Nia Jax.

You can view the entire Q&A session in the video above.