GLENDALE, Calif. -- Immediately after each of her UFC title fights, Ronda Rousey takes a single, solitary moment to at least try to process the insanity of her life.
This summer, Rousey knocked out Bethe Correia in 34 seconds to defend her bantamweight title at UFC 190 in Rio de Janeiro. The buildup to the Aug. 1 fight turned personal when Correia made several comments on suicide, which has affected Rousey's family. The fight took place in front of a Brazilian crowd of 14,723, virtually all of which cheered for Rousey instead of Correia, a Brazil native.
Less than two months later, Rousey would announce her next title defense, against Holly Holm, on "Good Morning America," kicking off a familiar cycle that will culminate in whatever happens on Nov. 14, when she meets Holm in Melbourne, Australia.
But for that brief moment after every fight, Rousey admits she's basically in as much awe as everyone else by what's just taken place. She makes your skin tingle when she talks about it.
"The last fight, everything with Bethe and then she's knocked out, everyone's like, 'Whoa,'" Rousey said. "We're in Brazil, but they're cheering for me. Everything's crazy. And I finally get that moment where I look at myself in the mirror -- you know, sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror, but you don't really look? I really look and go, 'What are you doing? How did that just happen today?'"
Those moments are crucial for Rousey. They keep her going in a sport she's completely changed in the past five years.
Rousey, 28, has reaped unbelievable rewards from her involvement in mixed martial arts, but she's made sacrifices, too.
One of those sacrifices is a certain level of privacy. She's attempted to tell her story on her own terms, releasing an autobiography earlier this year that touched on personal matters such as battling an eating disorder. She's spoken at length about losing her father to suicide at a young age. She said that in 2012 the main reason she agreed to appear nude in ESPN's "Body Issue" was to get in front of an ex-boyfriend who she discovered had taken naked photos of her.
During this current training camp for the Holm fight, aspects of Rousey's personal life have made mainstream news. Her mother, Dr. AnnMaria De Mars, publicly ripped into her longtime head coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, in a video interview. That same week, her romantic involvement with UFC heavyweight Travis Browne was made public and turned into countless headlines. Browne was suspended earlier this year by the UFC for domestic abuse allegations, but no charges were filed and he was reinstated.
Tarverdyan declined to comment directly to De Mars' comments during a media appearance on Tuesday. He told ESPN.com, "It was just a moment, I guess. I don't even know. [Rousey and I] didn't get into it or what it was. I just left it alone, honestly."
When asked to comment on the situation later that day, Rousey glared at the reporter who asked and responded, "I really don't think that's anybody's business."
"I just don't know where everyone's sense of entitlement comes from," Rousey later told ESPN.com. "Why do you feel like you have a right to know? People feel comfortable asking things that I would feel is really inappropriate to ask them. People stop treating you like a person and start treating you like an event. You're not real to them anymore. I give so much information out there. Be content with what I give you. I give you a lot."
Could these intrusions into Rousey's personal life distract her from her fight against Holm (9-0) in two weeks? Tarverdyan and Rousey claim they actually help. Distractions tend to point Rousey toward her sanctuary, which has always been the gym.
"There's always distractions," Tarverdyan said. "There have been days lately where it's a bit more sensitive than others, but I think training is Ronda's therapy. She wants to be in here so she can stay away from the complicated situations."
What the intrusions might do, however, is force Rousey into seclusion when her career is over. Her retirement plan sounds like a joke when she first says it, but she swears by it.
"When I'm done with all this, I'm moving to the middle of nowhere," Rousey said. "I want to have a buffalo repopulation project. I want to get a big tract of land and get a bunch of buffalo and name them people names. Like, 'that's Howard. That's my buffalo, Howard.' I just want to hang out, and I want my kids to accidentally find out [about my career].
"I found out one day my mom was a world champion in judo because I found her scrapbook in the house. I was flipping through it, and it was like this revelation -- I realized my mom was a world champion. And that was actually a really cool experience for me as a kid, and I kind of want my kids to have that. I don't want their identity growing up to be that they're my kid. I want their identity to be themselves.
"Everyone thinks I won't be able to do it. I'll get bored. [UFC president Dana White] will say, 'No way, you're going to be doing this and that.' And I say, 'No. I'm going to make my mark, and no one will ever hear from me again.'"