Ah, Ronda Rousey. Olympic medallist. Star of The Expendables 3. Highest-paid fighter in the UFC. Immortalised in a K-Pop song that barely passes as rap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Vo8bb9RyM
It hasn’t always been this way. Back before Ronda started making a name for herself, she was just a normal 16-year-old girl. The kind who moderated Pokemon forums and geeked out in her user profile.
I’m completely serious.
After Ronda herself said as much on Twitter in 2012, some enterprising netizen finally dug up her details in 2014. And I only just discovered this whole story myself another two years later. Sure, call it old news, but did you know this? I didn’t. I am in awe right now. I don’t get how this wasn’t a bigger deal considering the original image upload has had over a million views.
The old website is more or less dead, so we have to take it on trust that mew182 really was her. The full screencap is pretty big, so here’s a smaller version you can hopefully click/tap on and view properly.
I myself am no stranger to the lure of an internet forum. Yes, I had a Neopet or three. I spent hours discussing Tekken with like-minded teens who may or may not have been suspiciously illiterate adults.
It’s interesting that Ronda named herself after Mew. Back then it was much easier to decide on your favourite Pokemon because there weren’t so damn many.
The quotes from this user profile are GOLD. Exactly the type of random, funny, slightly bizarre stuff we all came up with at that age.
“I’m 12 feet tall, purple, a few scales, and every hour or so a chicken falls out of my ear…”
That was Ronda at 16, that was me at 16, that was pretty much all of us at 16, right?
“If you screw up, don’t freak out over it, just think, two years from now, it will have no impact on your life whatsoever.”
Honestly, the uncovering of your Pokemon forum mod account 11 years later doesn’t fill me with confidence, Ronda.
Two things surprise me: that I didn’t get wind of this at the time, and that relatively few celebs have a pre-fame internet presence they’ll admit to like this. Should I ever get that famous, let’s hope nobody tries to track down my old Tekken sparring buddies for comment.
