Issue 228

April 2026

Harry Williams breaks down the new fight game where motherhood and MMA collide, and why the women balancing both might be the most dangerous athletes in the sport.

We’ve all got a life debt to our mothers. However, for elite fighters, the transition from the gloves to the nursery is rarely a simple pivot. Few exemplify this evolution more than Ronda Rousey. As she prepares for a monumental return to face Gina Carano on May 16, 2026, she’s made it clear that her long-term motivations have shifted to the preservation of her family unit. After leaving the UFC in 2016, Rousey quickly started a family with her husband, Travis Browne, and they now have two children. While the lure of a high-profile comeback is enough to bring her back for one last dance, she has strictly promised her husband and sister that this is her final outing.  

“I’m done fighting after this,” Rousey told The Breakfast Club, noting that her primary driver now is the desire to have more kids.

Rousey isn't the only one rewriting the mom narrative in MMA. Julianna Pena famously declared herself the first mom champ after defeating Amanda Nunes, even suggesting the UFC create a ‘Baddest Mom on the Planet’ belt. That’s a title many of our own mothers probably feel they’ve earned after surviving our teenage years. More recently, Mackenzie Dern won the strawweight title in 2025, proving that chasing a toddler's energy might actually be the best cardio prep. For Rousey, the ‘dragon sickness’ of hunting down more money or fame no longer holds sway because she views her time as a mother as her most valuable currency. It’s a snapshot of a much bigger shift happening across the sport, where fighters aren’t just asking how long they can compete, but how they can coexist with something that matters more: family. 

THE BIOLOGICAL BLITZ

The mom-bod has got plenty of street cred behind it, especially when you consider that mystical ability to lift a car if their toddler was underneath it. However, the reality of returning to MMA after a baby is more like trying to reboot your laptop after someone spilled a caramel macchiato on it. The mental and physical postpartum struggle is real, so understanding it might earn you more respect for these champions and offer insights into why they’re so powerful. When elite athletes returned to competition after having a baby, 57% reported improved performance, while 29% reported worse performance. Pregnancy kicks off a massive biological remodeling of the cardiovascular system to support the growing baby, so during pregnancy, there can be a 28-52% increase in heart wall thickness. It can act as a performance enhancer for about a year or more after childbirth. However, that’s one of the few upsides, because the hormones that help give birth can make you more prone to blowing a knee thanks to joint hypermobility. Even breastfeeding can lead to a decrease in bone mineral density throughout the spine, but luckily, that usually recovers within about 18 months. So, while we all love a comeback story, the reality is more likely to be about bodily chaos with a side of sleep deprivation. You’re dealing with a physique that’s rebuilding itself, a brain that’s rewired around keeping a tiny human alive, and a schedule that doesn’t care about making it on time for a sparring session. And yet, somehow, that motherly pressure cooker creates something different. Not necessarily a better athlete on paper, but possibly a more dangerous one. Because when your baseline for stress and pain includes childbirth, everything else may start to look manageable.

MUM’S THE WORD

Becoming a mother is supposed to be a joyous time, but for some, it comes rather unexpectedly. In February 2020, Irish ace Shauna Bannon found herself flying to Preston, England, for a fight. Just days following her venture to England, Bannon discovered she was pregnant with her first child, Jayce. She was excited but alarmed because she’d just done five grueling rounds against Dakota Ditcheva, taking many strikes to the abdomen, which raised some concerns for the bub, but luckily, everything was okay. At the time, Bannon had dreams of making it in the UFC, and before discovering her pregnancy, she’d already made the call to step back from her day job in finance and was earning considerably less, working at her gym’s front desk to make ends meet. Then, in March 2020, the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. In just four weeks, ‘Mama B’ had gone from a surging prospect with UFC aspirations to having no job, no income, and a child on the way. 

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘Am I going to be able to handle all of this?’ I did not think I’d be able to give my son what he needed and get to the top of the MMA scene,” she told Fighters Only’s Harry Williams. “I had all these thoughts that I’d never be able to cut it as a mother, never mind as a mother and an athlete. There were a few months where I had to rely on the people around me while I got my head together. This is where I knew I had that dog in me.”

You could think of it as the kind of pressure that forces everything into perspective. From that moment on, the fight wasn’t just about making it to the world’s biggest stage. Instead, it was about building a life that could hold both dreams.

A LONELY ROAD

The fight for Bannon was far from over because five months into her pregnancy, the relationship with her child’s father fell apart. She parted ways with her boyfriend, and another round of challenges presented themselves. 

“The pregnancy part was the most alone I felt in my whole entire life,” she says. “As much as my friends and family were there for me, I felt nobody understood what I was going through. I felt like everything had been taken away from me. I had to go through this no matter what. Given the time period, I was stuck at home. I couldn’t see my friends. I felt like it was just me on my own, battling through this day by day.”

Fortunately, she had an escape: the smell of punished leather and the sound of a swinging heavy bag at her father’s empty gym. 

“I still lifted weights and hit the heavy bag every day because there was nothing else I could do. I took each day as it came. Through everything that popped up in pregnancy, the gym helped me get through it all.” 

It became less about fighting others and more about holding herself together. And in that space, she found something that doesn’t show up on a record: grit.

A BIGGER PURPOSE

No matter how many people are in your corner, the performance on fight night comes down to you alone. It’s a selfish act, but it’s what’s demanded to meet great heights. Bannon’s focus still remains on becoming a superstar in the UFC’s strawweight division, and she believes her goal has been empowered by the presence of her young son. 

“Being a mother has given me a greater sense of purpose now,” she smiles. “The first thing I want to do when I walk out of the cage, win or lose, is call my son and talk to him. He’s the first person who comes to my mind as soon as that final bell rings. I’m so thankful to have a son like Jayce. He’s the best thing to ever happen to me. He changed my life for the better. Through hardship comes growth. Now, I look back on that time fondly. What I got out of it was something greater than I could have ever imagined.” 

That’s the kind of mental shift that doesn’t dilute the ambition; it sharpens it because while the stakes feel higher, the perspective feels clearer. And when the fight starts now, she’s no longer battling for her dream career, but for something waiting on the other side of it.

INSPIRED BY THE GREATS

Shauna Bannon watched Mackenzie Dern capture the UFC belt at UFC 321 and was moved to tears knowing Dern’s story as a single mother and a striving fighter. 

“Seeing Mackenzie Dern reach the pinnacle and win the world title was a huge inspiration for me. She’s the champ in my division, and I want to fight her one day, but I was crying my eyes out when she won the belt because her daughter ran into the cage afterwards. She’s a single mother too, so it’s quite relatable to me. I was sobbing because I could just envision that being me and Jayce in a few years time, you know? Being a mother is like being a superhero. It’s like a superpower. If you can be a mother while fighting at a high level, I think you can do anything.”

That vision of her son running up to her after a victory is no longer just a daydream fueled by tears; it’s a looming reality. Bannon’s grit through the isolation of the pandemic and the collapse of her relationship eventually paid dividends, propelling the Irish standout from a gym’s front desk to the world’s biggest stage in 2023 when she made her UFC debut. This May, she steps beneath the bright lights once again, carrying the weight of that journey with her. As we celebrate mothers this month, we’re reminded that the fiercest fighters aren’t always the ones with the gold belts around their waists, but the ones balancing the brutal demands of training with the relentless love for a child. Whether it's Rousey’s final walk or Bannon’s rising star, these women show us that motherhood doesn't end a career because sometimes, it gives it gives it something more: a soul. So, here’s to the moms breaking arms and breaking glass ceilings, proving that while pro MMA life might be temporary, being a mother is forever.