Ronda Rousey becomes the first woman to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame

LAS VEGAS – Ronda Rousey was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame on Thursday, becoming the first female inductee in the history of the company .

Rousey was the first UFC female champion, holding the bantamweight belt from 2012 to 2015 and defending her six times.

She won her first 12 professional martial arts mixed fights, including six at the UFC, all with submission, with 11 of the 12 fights completed. In the first round, all but three of those fights were decided in less than a minute, while Rousey holds records for four of the five fastest finals in the women 's rooster history. UFC.

"I'm not the first person doing this, but I'm here because I'm the first person to have taken the time to watch," Rousey told the crowd at Il Pearl Theater during his speech at the theater. ;introduction. "Thanks to you, I am the first woman to accept this incredible honor, to be the first among so many."

Rousey was the first American to win a judo Olympic medal when she clinched the bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, before making a career in mixed martial arts. She first made a name for mixed martial arts, where she was the last female Strikeforce bantamweight champion to be bought by the UFC in 2011. [19659005] In 2011, Dana White, president of the UFC, said that women would never fight. l & # 39; UFC. Two years later, Rousey, the first fighter to sign at the UFC, was fighting in the UFC's first female fight when she was beating Liz Carmouche at UFC 157.

"In almost 18 years as president of the UFC, I learned valuable lessons, "said White introducing Rousey." And whoever comes to tonight never says never, especially when you talk to UFC In my defense, when I said that women would never fight at the UFC, I had never met Ronda Rousey. She started by changing her mind and she ended up changing the world. "

Rousey quickly became a She has titled her last four a la carte fights, the last two pulling 1.1 million purchases at the card and the previous 900,000. The only other UFC fighters to attract these numbers since 2014 is Conor McGregor and Brock Lesnar

She was named the most dominant active athlete by several points of sale in 2015 and an ESPN online poll during this period qualified Rousey as the best female athlete of all time with supporting roles in the films "The Expendables 3", "Furious 7" and "Entourage". [19659005] Rousey was one of the biggest stars in the world and considered unbeatable, until her shocking defeat in the second round to Holly Holm in front of 56 214 fans in Melbourne, Australia, on November 15, 2015. She came back with a year late r but was eliminated again, this time only 48 seconds in the first round to Amanda Nunes at the UFC 207 in Las Vegas on December 30, 2016. Rousey has not participated in the MMA since this defeat. She signed with WWE in January 2018.

"Whenever I entered this cage, I hoped to make you proud," Rousey told the crowd. "We had this amazing trip, and it was really an honor to be able to live with you."