LOS ANGELES -- UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, who defends her title against No. 1 contender Cat Zingano Saturday at Staples Center in the main event of UFC 184, has long been an outspoken proponent of drug testing.
She admitted Thursday during a media scrum that she is pretty much a homebody and doesn't do much other than work and relax at home. Part of that, she said was as a result of the year she spent as a bartender following the 2008 Olympics, where she won a bronze medal in judo.
Rousey has been able to juggle all sorts of projects and remain successful inside the Octagon -- in addition to fighting, she's acted in three movies and will appear in more, has written an autobiography, appeared in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, makes public appearances to promote the UFC and has been a frequent guest on late night talk shows -- which she said can do because she prioritizes fighting above all else.
It's also because, from the sound of it, she got sick of partying.
"What I really have to attribute all this focus to is right when I turned 21, I was a bartender and I pretty much drank and partied for one year straight," she said. "[After that], I was just over it forever. I never wanted to be that person on the other side of the bar by the time I was done. So I just have no patience or motivation for any kind of partying or anything like that. I'm either working or I'm on the couch."
Rousey and Zingano went through an enhanced testing process prior to the fight, and she'll be tested more rigorously in coming months as the UFC amps up its efforts to combat use of performance-enhancing drugs among fighters.
When Rousey was in the Olympic program, she became accustomed to the strict ways of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's policies. Athletes have to let testers know of their whereabouts at all times and when they are chosen to be randomly tested, the collector has to watch the athlete urinate so that no false urine can be used to beat the test.
That's an invasion of privacy to some, but it was never a problem for Rousey, perhaps because of the way her mother, AnnMaria DeMars, taught her.
"My Mom used to say, 'Watching you pee is not the peak of their day, either,' Rousey said. "I understood that and I understand it keeps all of us safe."
She said testers only collected urine from her when she was in the Olympic program, but the UFC's testing plan will also collect blood, which is better for some tests.
Twirling her long hair, Rousey joked that testers could even cut samples of her hair if she wanted. But then she grinned and remembered her partying days from 2009.
"I love that they're doing blood," she said. "They could even do hair. But my hair's so long that they could even find something that I was doing in 2009 in my bartending days. 'Yeah, I forgot about that day. Like, it was 2009 and 2009 is down here [near the end].' "
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