LeBron James and Kobe Bryant Defend Ronda Rousey After UFC 207 Loss

After Ronda Rousey’s first round loss at UFC 207, a lot of people criticized her online. Two people who did not, however, are NBA superstars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, who defended her.

In an interview with Ohio.com, LeBron said: “In sports, in general, they build you up as high as they can, put you on the highest mountain in the world, just to tear you down. That’s coming from somebody who has experienced it. And that’s exactly what she’s going through right now. That’s a fact. I know exactly how she feels because I was that athlete. I went through that. You don’t know her mindset,” he continued. “You don’t know the drive, is the drive still there? You don’t know. But you can tell that it’s built and built and built and built and built, they always make the teardown story more important than how long it took for her to actually get to the mountaintop.”

Kobe added on Twitter:

Instead of clapping for @RondaRousey defeat give her a standing O for putting the sport on the map #pioneer #muse

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) December 31, 2016