Ronda Rousey didn’t hold back when explaining how she feels about the state of UFC — and women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko caught a stray in the process.
“It used to be that UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly,” she said at a Tuesday, March 10, press conference ahead of her upcoming fight against Gina Carano. “And now it’s no longer. It’s one of the worst places to go. It’s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s why their champions like Valentina are selling pictures of their titties on OnlyFans.”
Rousey, 39, continued, “These people, a lot of them at the ground level, they can’t support their families. They’re living [at] poverty level fighting full time. This company just got $7.7 billion. There’s no reason that they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage.”
(Rousey was referring to the $7.7 billion deal that UFC announced with Paramount in August 2025.)
Shevchenko, 38, evidently heard Rousey’s remarks. She took to her Instagram Story on Tuesday night to address them in a text-only post.
“It’s 2026. Fighters using OnlyFans is just a new way to connect with fans,” she wrote. “Looks like Ronda slept too long after her last fight in 2016.”
Rousey’s rant wasn’t limited to discussing athletes’ pay. She opened by saying, “It’s just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore,” pointing to her friend, CEO Dana White’s, diminished role.
“Dana isn’t the owner and he isn’t calling the shots and he isn’t running things the way that he wants because he’s an employee of the company,” she said. “It was a big mistake of theirs to not let him just run things the way that he always has.”
She also pointed to what she believed to be an underwhelming card for UFC Freedom 250, scheduled for June 14 on the South Lawn of the White House.
“[White] knows that the White House card sucks,” Rousey said. “He knows that they were pushing this for over a year and it fell extremely short of expectations. He was so upset about it he was talking about a fight falling out the day before. I can guarantee you he’s not happy with it either.”
Lightweight champion Ilia Topuria and interim champion Justin Gaethje will fight at the top of the UFC Freedom 250 card for the right to be called “undisputed.” The full event will feature six fights but with none of the biggest names in the sport expected to compete.
