Wrestling and mixed martial arts journalist Dave Meltzer says the UFC made little effort to discourage former world bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey from signing a contract with the WWE.
Rosey's not stepped into the octagon since her defeat to Amanda Nunes in a comeback bout at UFC 207 in December 2018 and teased her in-ring WWE debut at the end of the their Royal Rumble pay-per-view last week.
'Rowdy' made a celebrity appearance at Wrestlemania in 2015 and has appeared sporadically on their programming in the last two-years and has been training at WWE's development centre in Florida in recent months.
Meltzer, the editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and contributor to MMAFighting.com, told Off the Ball that UFC President Dana White didn't push to keep Rousey in MMA.
"I don't think he made any effort at all. I think they wanted her to fight on a December show, months ago, but it was never something that was pushed really hard and I don't think it was something they thought would really happen. She draws them big business but...she still is under contract and they have said no. They gave their blessing.
"When she did her first Wrestlemania a couple of years ago he said it was a one and done...but now they know she's pretty much done as a fighter, it doesn't hurt them at all for her to go into WWE."
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Meltzer feels Rousey was shaken by her successive defeats to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
"She doesn't take well to losing. Even when she lost her first fight, there was some question as to whether she'd ever fight again and when she did there were a lot of changes she needed to make that she didn't make. The end result was the second fight and most people figured she'd never fight again and would move to pro wrestling.
"She's a fan of pro wrestling, she's wanted to do it and trained a bit for it in recent years and a lot for it in recent months.
"The first loss broke her, she became a different person. Everything about her became different, she did try for the second fight...she trained but mentally I just think it was a different person going into the cage the second time (against Nunes). She didn't have the confidence and she had a terrible game plan and she trained all wrong. She didn't have the right advisors and she came in light and everything but she was too small and she went out there trying to be a boxer and she's not a boxer."
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Kevin Kilbane also asked Meltzer whether Conor McGregor could follow Rousey in making the crossover to MMA
.@kdkilbane77 asked Dave Meltzer on #OTB whether Conor McGregor could follow Ronda Rousey in making the switch to WWE in the future pic.twitter.com/UsQV6dmxSc
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) January 31, 2018
The full podcast from Dave Meltzer's conversation with Dave McIntyre is available here
