RONDA ROUSEY is the world’s hardest woman renowned as much for bashing people’s heads in as she is her eye-catching looks.
But behind the leather jacket-wearing tough exterior lies a softer side that sees her donate generously to charity and look after her two stepsons.
Footage recently emerged appearing to show the former UFC champion in training for her professional wrestling debut – which is rumoured to come at April’s Wrestlemania showpiece.
All the moves are there: the Irish whip into the turnbuckle, a DDT on a man and even a kick to the gut.
Rousey, who turned 31 this month, will likely make millions in WWE.
She is expected to officially sign her contract with the company at Sunday’s Elimination Chamber.
Yet her real kick comes from providing for the disadvantaged and those who want to follow in her footsteps.
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She digs into her own pocket…
As far back as 2013 – when Rousey was nowhere near the global superstar she is now – the American donated around £3,500 of her own cash to a mental health charity that dealt with issues surrounding eating disorders.
While competing in judo, Rousey spoke candidly of how she battled her own demons regarding her yo-yoing weight that would fluctuate wildly with regular weigh-ins.
SO IT BEGINS Rousey to officially sign WWE contract at Elimination Chamber
And she helped raise more cash for Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services by allowing people to pay almost £150 a go to grapple with her.
She takes no prisoners with her charity work
Rousey also launched a ‘No DNBs’ appeal as a tie-in with the same charity – ‘No DNBs’ meaning a “do nothing b***h”.
Rousey said: “I have this one term for the kind of woman my mother raised me to not be, and I call it a do nothing b***h.
“The kind of chick that just tries to be pretty and be taken care of by someone else.”
A portion of the money raised from the sale of Rousey’s T-shirts went to providing mental health care and substance abuse services to more than 90,000 people throughout southern California.
Some 56,809 tops have so far been purchased, meaning a significant chunk of the £1million raised has gone to providing care for others.
Then in 2016 Rousey donated £21,500 to Flavio Canto, a Brazilian Olympic judo bronze medallist, who teaches combat sports to kids from the favelas of his native country.
Canto, who posed for a photo alongside big-hearted Rousey, wrote: “Speechless. Ronda is a champion inside and outside the octagon. My eternal gratitude.”
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Her quiz fed 100,000 people
On top of all this there was Rousey’s Free Rice Campaign, which saw sponsors donate ten grains of rice for every correct answer on a quiz run on her website.
The initiative was so popular that, over the course of seven fights, Rousey raised enough food to feed 103,296 people in worse off countries.
And she helps the kids
Always with one eye on the future generations, Rousey started the Gompers Judo program in 2009, in part because her sister Jennifer was previously a student teacher at Gompers Middle school in Los Angeles.
The fight star would auction off goods to raise funds for children learning judo, covering their cost of airfare, accommodation and food for when they travelled to Washington DC for a competition.
Ronda the loving step-mum
Rousey’s selflessness is evident in her personal life too, as she juggles being a fight phenomenon, film star and globe-trotting icon with stepmum duties to husband Travis Browne’s two sons.
UFC star Browne, 35, has young lads, Kaleo and Keawe, from his first marriage to Erin Browne.
He uploaded a heartwarming clip of his two boys being shocked when Rousey made her grand entrance in the WWE at last month’s Royal Rumble.
Browne, who tied the knot with Rousey in August last year, wrote alongside the clip: “So hard not telling these boys what was going on! @rondarousey I absolutely love seeing that smile on your face! Your boys are very proud of you!”
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