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Even at 16, Ronda Rousey got date requests from total strangers

Even at 16, Ronda Rousey got date requests from total strangers

GLENDALE, Calif. – Ronda Rousey has far more date requests than she can handle these days.

She acknowledged earlier this month that she's in a relationship with UFC heavyweight Travis Browne. She's planning to go to the Marine Corps ball in December with a Marine who made a video and asked her out. She's been wooed by an Iowa Cubs minor league baseball player as well as the starting quarterback on Ohio State's national championship team last season.

But though Rousey has often said she didn't date when she was in high school, she still got odd date requests even then.

Rousey, the women's bantamweight champion who defends her belt on Nov. 14 in Australia in the main event of UFC 193 against Holly Holm, told Yahoo Sports about an incident when a lifeguard asked her out after watching her surreptiously work out to rehabilitate a knee injury when she was only 16.

Ronda Rousey. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Ronda Rousey. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Rousey had knee surgery and was going to a Southern California YMCA to rehab it. She'd dropped out of high school and was being home schooled so she could take a run at the U.S. Olympic judo team in 2004, which she made.

"This was after I had my knee surgery and I'd walk to the Y every day and do the elliptical and everything," she said. "There is a window there that overlooks the pool. I didn't know this, but one of the lifeguards had a crush on me just from seeing me in the window every day."

He had a unique way of asking her out. He put a glove on the end of a stick and then dropped it down in front of her. Written on the front, it said simply, "Hi!" He rotated the glove to show the back and it said, "Will you go out with me some day?"

Naturally, Rousey got a kick out of it.

"It was so adorable," she said.

Rousey accepted his offer, but it didn't go the way either of them planned. He was 18 and she was 16 and that caused an issue.

"He tried taking me to a pool hall but they wouldn't let me in because I was under 18, so he had to take me home," she said.

Rousey has blossomed into one of the biggest stars in sports, and no one knows what became of her one-time admirer. She won't soon forget him, however.