In a recent Reddit AMA this week, UFC Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey revealed she used to be a moderator for a Pokemon forum on GameTalk.com under the handle mew182.
Though she previously confirmed this on Twitter back in 2012, Redditors were still stoked at the chance to ask her Pokémon-related questions.
—Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) January 9, 2012
Rousey also answered a few Pokémon-related questions in the comments. After being asked what type of Pokémon she would want to fight in the UFC Octagon, Rousey answered, “Throh — because he’s the Judo Pokémon and would challenge me the most.”
Reddit users were impressed that Rousey was familiar with Throh who is in the fifth generation of the game, which means he was not a part of the original 151 Pokémon characters. Only serious players who had kept up with the game, like Rousey has, would be familiar with Throh.
She also reaffirmed her love for the Pokémon character Mew, adding that her Game of Thrones house sigil would be a Mew with the hair of Vegeta — a character from Dragon Ball. Her melding of the Pokémon, Dragon Ball, and Game of Thrones fandoms sent Reddit into a frenzy. Some even designed what her house sigil would look like.
Fans of Rousey know this isn’t anything new for her. After she revealed that she had previously been a moderator on GameTalk.com, people dug up her old user profile that she wrote when she was 16. It was a pretty great read:
More recently in September 2014, she was stopped at a red carpet event and asked a question about Pokémon by the YouTube channel MMA Fighting. Instead of brushing off the question, Rousey went on a nearly three-minute-long monologue about her history with Pokémon.
“I got the trading cards first, my first trading card was a Dragonair,” she told MMA Fighting. “And then I got the video game — I got it on GameBoy color. And my first one was Pokémon Blue and my first Pokémon was a Charmander and I was immediately hooked on it. I lost a bunch of weight that summer — and I was a small kid — because I would not stop paying."
At the end of the video, Rousey’s rep had to lead her away — she still wasn’t done discussing Pokémon and she was scheduled to give other interviews.