Ronda Rousey: Fighting is good for people’s mental health

Cross-over superstar Ronda Rousey hasn’t stepped into the Octagon since last year after suffering a devastating knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193. In spite of the jaw-breaking, concussion-causing head kick Holm dealt her, the former champ still regards the sport as beneficial to the brain.

Rousey waxed philosophical during an interview with USA Today on Wednesday and got into the benefits of the mind when it comes to mixed martial arts and human aggression:

“(MMA) really is the most responsible outlet for (aggression),” she says. “It’s a human instinct to fight. If you try to suppress it entirely, and put everyone in a bubble-wrapped society, that’s when people start going nuts and shooting movie theaters. If any of those people that had all of that aggression built up in them had some sort of outlet, I think that we’d have a lot more societal health because of it.”

While Rousey doesn’t have a fight lined up yet since her loss to Holm, she has been busy in the meantime filming the ‘Road House’ beboot, production of which began in February 2016, just three months removed from her first loss and the first time she’s been knocked out in her career.