Were we all too harsh to Ronda Rousey at the end of her UFC career?

In case you weren’t around for Ronda Rousey’s first exit from the world of mixed martial arts fighting back in 2016, let me give you a sense of how it went down. First she was unbeatable, the messiah who led women’s MMA into the promised land known as the UFC. Then she got knocked out by Holly Holm at UFC 193 and was later seen hiding behind a pillow at LAX , which made for a pretty sharp contrast from her days as the swaggering champ with the sharp tongue.

She made one stab at redemption the following year and was brutalized by Amanda Nunes, at which point the entire MMA world basically pointed and laughed and hit share on endless mocking memes . And that was it. Rousey was seen no more in the UFC.

Her entire professional career lasted just a shade over five years, yet changed the entire landscape of women’s MMA. She was a meteor, streaking through the sky in a flash of light that was as brilliant as it was brief. But in the years that followed, Rousey never quite got the nostalgic, retroactive love from fans that so many other retired fighters do.

A big part of that was the way she went out. She lost two straight and then ran away to hide. That was the perception, anyway.