UFC champ Ronda Rousey's ultimate goal? 'Highest-grossing actor in the world'

It appears Hollywood aspirations will eventually win out over a successful and historic fighting career for UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey.

The undefeated 135-pound female titleholder, who helped usher in a roster of women in the world’s top MMA promotion, wants her latest film roles to simply be the start of a much bigger career.

“I didn’t grow up wanting to be an action star,” she recently told ESPN The Magazine. “I just didn’t think it was in the cards. Now that it’s a possibility, I’m like, ‘Screw it, I don’t give a s—. If The Rock can become the world’s highest-grossing actor, I can have that same goal.’ I want to be the highest-grossing actor in the world someday.”

It’s not the first time Rousey has mentioned The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) as a source of inspiration. The 27-year-old Californian said the former WWE star has laid out a path from sports-entertainment to Hollywood that she hopes to follow. And she’s off to a solid start with roles in the soon-to-release “Expendables 3,”  as well as “Fast & Furious 7? and the “Entourage” movie.

On the fighting side, Rousey, a 2008 Olympic bronze-medal judoka who was installed as the UFC’s inaugural women’s champion in 2012, has racked up a 10-0 record with 10 stoppages since her pro MMA debut in 2011. Since debuting with the UFC in early 2013, she’s 4-0 with four title defenses.

Most recently, Carano (10-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) needed just 16 seconds to dominate Alexis Davis. Up next could be a fight with former Strikeforce fighter and fellow actor Gina Carano (7-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC).

Although UFC President Dana White has targeted the matchup for December, assuming he can finalize a deal with Carano, Rousey said she’d understand if her would-be opponent needs to delay it for a potential film project.

“I know how hard it is to juggle a schedule of fights and movies,” she told ESPN. “If she wants to delay the fight a couple of months for a movie, I’d totally understand. If I had a similar situation, I’d hope she’d do the same for me. I take both careers extremely seriously. I don’t see why she shouldn’t.

” … I see her as a pioneer who really opened doors for me. She embodies qualities that people want to see, even if they didn’t know that they wanted to see it. Until Gina came around, people didn’t know that they wanted to see a full-bodied, tough girl who actually knows how to be feminine. No, I don’t see her as a competitor at all. I see her as a partner in all of this.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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