Following Laila Ali's recent comment on Ronda "Rowdy" Rousey being smaller than her to be an opponent, the UFC champion declared she is around if the female boxing champion "wants to take me up on that."
Earlier this week, the daughter of all-time boxing great Muhammad Ali was asked by TMZ whether she would beat the mixed martial arts superstar in a fight. Ali initially tried to avoid the question, saying it was pointless to compare considering that she is a boxer and Rousey is an MMA fighter.
However, the 37-year-old boxing champ - who held a 24-0 record in her boxing career -ultimately declared, "No woman in the world can beat me. Period."
The retired female boxer also took a shot at the UFC champ's size, saying she has the size advantage over the 5'7" Rousey. When the interviewer suggested that Rousey would be a worthy opponent for her, Ali replied, "Of course not. She's too much smaller than me anyways. She's like the size of my daughter. My 3-year-old."
However, the 28-year old MMA superstar does not seem to agree with Ali's words. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Rousey declared: "If she wants to take me up on that, I'm around."
The current Women's Bantamweight champion added: "She's retired and has several kids. I understand why she'd think that because she has a size advantage, but if you saw my last fight it had nothing to do with size or strength at all. That's not how I beat people. So you can't count having a size and strength advantage as having a real advantage against me."
Rousey holds an amazing 11-0 record in her MMA career so far, with 10 of her victories coming in the first round, according to Yahoo Sports. The "Arm Collector" has just come off her recent fight with Cat Zingano, whom she defeated within record-breaking 14 seconds at UFC 184 in February.
Now while the Ronda Rousey vs Laila Ali fight seems to have taken a lot of fans' interest, it is highly unlikely that the two will actually take on each other. The veteran boxer, who has last fought in 2007, clarified on Twitter that she is "retired and not interested in fighting" Rousey or anyone. She also reiterated that she and the world's best pound for pound female MMA fighter are "in a different weight class," and that she wished "all the best to her."
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