Ronda Rousey has never been one to shy away from speaking her mind, and her latest target is UFC executive Hunter Campbell. While Campbell officially serves as the UFC's chief business officer—and is often called the company's lawyer behind closed doors—Rousey sees him as something far less flattering: public enemy number one.
During a candid appearance on "The Ariel Helwani Show," the former bantamweight champion opened up about her tense dealings with Campbell regarding a potential fight between herself and Gina Carano. That long-discussed matchup is finally happening, but not under the UFC banner. Instead, Rousey and Carano will headline Most Valuable Promotions' first foray into MMA this Saturday at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, with the event streaming live on Netflix.
While Rousey maintains she still has a good relationship with UFC president Dana White—even after their negotiations fell apart—the same cannot be said for Campbell. "It wasn't personal. Well, with Hunter it was personal because he was just a f—ing asshole about it," Rousey said bluntly. "He was being such a chauvinist prick. He was being so dismissive, trying to get me and Gina to value ourselves less from the get-go. Like this isn't the greatest thing that's fallen on his lap since he's f—ing been there."
Rousey recalled Campbell questioning the fight's viability, saying he told them, "Oh, I don't know. You guys are just so much older, and I just don't know how it's going to do." The Olympic judoka was taken aback, especially since she didn't even know who Campbell was at the time. "First of all, I didn't even know who he was. They told me he's the lawyer that's going to come and show your pay-per-views, and I was like, 'Fine. I don't care. I'm going to knock this out of the park.' I love having my pay be performance-based. F—k you, I'll go show you."
But the disrespect didn't stop there. According to Rousey, Campbell wanted the Rousey-Carano fight to serve as a farewell to the women's featherweight division entirely—a move she found deeply insulting, not just for herself but for the future of women's MMA. "Then Dana started mentioning, because he wanted me and Gina to fight for the 145-pound title because it was vacant, and it's a way to retire the belt, and then Hunter is like, 'Yeah, and then we can get rid of that division,'" Rousey explained. "Just the way he spoke of it, how dismissive he was, and the disdain that he had for the fighters for that weight. My husband is 6'7"."