Sara McMann Recounts Her Side of Ronda Rousey Bout That Fell Through

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Sara McMann, on “Cheap Seats,” giving her take on a proposed fight with Ronda Rousey that fell through:

“My manager called me and said, ‘Do you want to fight Ronda Rousey? Both your pro debuts at 140 [pounds].’ I was pretty adamant about being at 135 since that’s closer to the best weight for me, but at that point I was like, I can’t really even be picky at all because it seems like I’m never going to get someone to step up. I said if you think that’s the best career move for me, then yeah, I’ll fight her. It was for Shark Fights, and it was $5,000 to fight, $5,000 to win and that didn’t include any kind of sponsorship deal that they would have helped us with.

“So I was like, yeah, OK. And then I didn’t hear from [manager Monte Cox] for a week, which is not very usual. He usually contacts me back after a couple of days. He told me to give it a little bit more time. Somebody, I think the matchmakers -- he told me the matchmaker told him that they were trying to talk her into saying yes to the fight. I was like, OK, this is really good money. To come out of the gates making $5,000 to fight and $5,000 to win your first fight? We would be making way more money second, third and fourth fights.

“Then they came back and they were just like, they turned it down. I was like, great. If I can’t get an Olympic bronze medalist to fight me, I’m never going to fight. It actually made me even more depressed about fighting.”