Rousey's coach disinterested in training her at first

When Ronda Rousey first set foot inside Edmond Tarverdyan's gym, the veteran boxing trainer didn't think much of it.

In fact, Tarverdyan was busy enough trying to train a legion of boxers at his Glendale, Calif., facility and didn't have much interest in shepherding the Olympic bronze medalist's potential MMA career.

"I'll be honest: When she came in, I didn't want to train her because I had my hands full," Tarverdyan told "The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, according to MMAjunkie.com's Mike Bohn. "I was like, 'What's this girl doing? What is she going to do with this? Is she serious? Is she not?'"

Tarverdyan allowed Rousey to train in his gym, but mostly left her to her own devices, only fixating on the future world champion when she was finally scheduled to make her amateur MMA debut.

"They called me literally the day they got her an amateur fight; her manager called me and said, 'Hey, we got a fight for Ronda. Are you in the area and think you could come through?'" Tarverdyan said. "I don’t know what hit me, but I was like, ‘Maybe I should respect this girl. She’s an Olympic medalist, and everyone is talking about how Ronda’s an Olympic medalist and a cool girl.’ I was like, 'Maybe I should check this girl out.'

"I went to her locker room and wrapped her hands, and I could tell she was excited I was there. I wrapped her hands and said, 'Keep your hands up.'"

The rest, as they say, is violent history. Under Tarverdyan's tutelage, Rousey has become the most dominant fighter in the sport, allowing just one of her opponents to escape the first round, while finishing each of her 12 victories via knockout, TKO, or submission.

The cupboards are bare, so to speak, when discussing legitimate opponents for Rousey. At this point, Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino likely remains the lone real challenge left for the UFC women's bantamweight champion.

"When you have an athlete, you need to know what to do; Ronda is the biggest, the fastest and the strongest fighter," Tarverdyan said. "Ronda - we’re talking about 'Cyborg' here - Ronda would with one hand, would toss around 'Cyborg.' She won't know where she is, even at 145.

"The problem is, it has to be fair, the fight. We do it pure. She’s never done anything unfair when it comes down to sports."