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One of Ronda Rousey's long-lost Judo coaches recently told the
Times Union that the UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion owes all of her success to the sport of Judo.
The coach, John Morris, who worked with Rousey for eight months in New York, including letting her sleep on a futon in his living room, didn't receive the most positive acknowledgement from "Rowdy" Ronda in her new autobiography, "My Fight / Your Fight."
"I was training under a coach I couldn't stand and who was taking my money," Rousey wrote in her book. "I was starving. I was not improving. 'What the (expletive) am I doing here?' I asked myself out loud."
Morris, who claims he has yet to read the book, fired back to the Times Union about Rousey, saying if nothing else, "he'll take the free advertising for his school, good or bad."
"I was happy to be mentioned," Morris said. "(Rousey) acknowledges that we were part of her rise, and anybody with a brain can say, 'These people must have something going for them.'"
Morris was also one of Rousey's coaches during her run as part of the national Judo team in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
"I'm a judo coach," said Morris. "I do the best I can, and (Rousey) came to me. I didn't seek her out. She wanted expert training, and I did the best I could at that time."
Morris went on to claim that when Rousey arrived at his academy, "There was nothing remarkable about her,' calling her 'an average teenage kid, kind of sloppy."
"She was already an exceptional competitor, which she still is today," Morris continued. "But she was raw, and there was a lot of room for technical advances. And that's basically where I filled in a lot of things that she does today, among other coaches. I'm just a small blip in her existence."
"The reality is she owes her entire existence to our sport," Morris said. "Not to me or any one person. ... The judo community raised her, and this is why she's so successful."
Ronda Rousey returns to the Octagon to defend her UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship against undefeated number one contender Bethe Correia in the main event of UFC 190 on Saturday, August 1, 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
