UFC legend Ronda Rousey has revealed she suffered a concussion early during her WWE run – after being slapped by Stephanie McMahon.

Never a stranger to being beaten and bloodied as a result of real sports combat during her glittering octagon career, Rousey also put her body on the line after transitioning into wrestling.

1Rousey successfully transitioned to the WWE after a stellar UFC careerCredit: Getty

As a former Royal Rumble winner and a multi-time world champion and WrestleMania headliner, the fighting great put her all into her short-lived career in WWE’s wild world of sports entertainment.

She did so on the back of being left feeling as though she was ‘falling apart on the inside of my skull’ prior to her run with the company, her 14 MMA fights clearly taking their toll.

Unfortunately, Rousey would go on to suffer multiple concussions during her wrestling career – one freakishly coming before she’d barely begun to wrestle.

At Elimination Chamber in 2018, one such incident occurred as she took part in a staged segment to sign her WWE contract as part of a storyline, a brawl ensuing in which she put Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque through a table.

As Stephanie McMahon stepped up to protect her husband, she delivered a stiff looking slap to Rousey – a blow the Baddest Women on the Planet revealed left her injured.

“It gave me a concussion,” Rousey told Cageside Seats, having explained that she’d spent much of her pre-debut medical screening hoping the company would avoid finding anything of concern.

She said: “They were scanning my brain, and I was like: ‘Please don’t find that I’m just falling apart on the inside of my skull.’

“But they said everything looked great. I was cleared to wrestle, but I just wouldn’t be able to talk about [my concussion history].”

Rousey did manage to get a measure of revenge on McMahon, at least as part of their on-screen feud.

The Rowdy One’s first high-profile match came weeks after that fateful slap as she teamed with Kurt Angle to meet McMahon and Triple H at WrestleMania.

Rousey ended up putting McMahon in an armbar submission hold, forcing her to submit and hand Rousey and Angle victory.

McMahon, daughter of Vince McMahon, made her name not as a wrestler, but as a high-powered company executive of WWE, where she served as Chief Brand Officer and, up until 2023, a board member prior to the company’s acquisition by TKO as part of a merger withUFC.

Though not a wrestler by trade, McMahon did occasionally step into the ring, often alongside her husband, with whom she formed The Authority, an on-screen villainous duo.

Rousey made the stunning revelation as part of an interview to promote her upcoming tell-all autobiography, Our Fight, which is out next month.

Rousey’s new book and the interviews in advance of it has resulted in some damning headlines for those associated with WWE during her time there.

For her part, the iconic fighter has vowed never to return, insisting: “I don’t need anything from them and I don’t intend on going back, so I can say everything that I think and feel while everybody else is still held captive by their organisation.”