Pokémon Champions arriving on April 8 has revived a enjoyable query for combat followers: who’s the UFC’s best Pokémon diehard, and does anybody prime Ronda Rousey’s long-documented obsession?
Pokémon Champions
Pokémon Champions is a brand new battle-focused title launching on Nintendo Swap and Nintendo Swap 2 on April 8, 2026, utilizing a free-to-start mannequin just like Pokémon Unite. The sport leans on core mechanics like varieties, Skills, and six-Pokémon groups in Single and Double Battles, and it’ll assist ranked, informal, and personal on-line modes with non-compulsory paid bundles and a premium battle cross.
A launch-day replace will improve visuals on Nintendo Swap 2, and Champions is slated to change into the primary platform for official Video Sport Championships occasions in 2026.
Pokémon Champions is a technique and aggressive battling sport. It’s constructed across the normal turn-based Pokémon battle system: you assemble groups and challenge instructions in Single and Double Battles utilizing varieties, Skills, and strikes, very similar to the mainline RPGs.
The main focus is on-line participant‑versus‑participant competitors, with Ranked, Informal, and Personal Battles somewhat than arcade-style 1v1 fight like Avenue Fighter or Tekken. You recruit or import Pokémon, tune their stats and strikes with an in‑sport forex, after which climb a ladder in opposition to different gamers, together with in codecs linked to the official Pokémon World Championships.
Ronda Rousey’s lifelong fandom
Ronda Rousey’s Pokémon historical past runs deeper than a passing reference, which is why many view her because the main candidate for the title of largest UFC Pokémon fan. In a 2015 Reddit AMA, she revealed that as a young person she moderated a Pokémon Stadium 2 discussion board on GameTalk beneath the deal with “mew182,” describing herself as a “big-time Pokémon nerd.”
She has named Mew as her favourite Pokémon and has answered detailed hypothetical matchup questions, together with debating whether or not she would somewhat face a Mew-sized Mewtwo or 100 Mewtwo-sized Mews, selecting the only Mew-sized Mewtwo because the smarter combat.
Rousey has even joked about how her trademark armbar would work together with Pokémon like Throh, the Judo Pokémon, displaying a stage of engagement with particular strikes, varieties, and characters that goes past informal fandom.
Brandon Moreno and the collector wave
Mexico’s former flyweight champion Brandon Moreno has change into the fashionable face of Pokémon in MMA by way of his card and memorabilia assortment. In podcast appearances, Moreno has talked a few critical behavior of shopping for and buying and selling Pokémon playing cards, presenting himself as a dedicated collector outdoors the cage.
He spends downtime looking uncommon pulls and discussing favourite playing cards, giving him a special profile from Rousey: much less about discussion board tradition and extra concerning the bodily trading-card aspect of the franchise.
However Rousey stands aside: she moderated a Pokémon discussion board as a young person, makes use of a Pokémon-themed deal with, has talked about particular monsters and hypothetical fights, and nonetheless will get referenced years later as “Pokémon-obsessed.” Moreno’s card accumulating and media presence make him the main determine of the present period, however the depth and early-internet nature of Rousey’s fandom give her a stronger historic declare to being the UFC’s largest Pokémon fan.
With Pokémon Champions about to push aggressive battling into a brand new format, the franchise’s bond with MMA tradition appears set to develop.
Ronda Rousey’s long-awaited showdown with Gina Carano is about for Might 16, 2026, in a five-round featherweight bout at 145 kilos on the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, beneath the Unified Guidelines of MMA and promoted by Most Priceless Promotions as Netflix’s first dwell MMA foremost occasion. Each ladies are coming back from prolonged layoffs, framing the combat as a legacy-defining assembly between two pioneers of ladies’s MMA that Rousey has referred to as “the most important tremendous combat in ladies’s fight sport historical past,” with the bout streaming worldwide to Netflix subscribers at no additional cost.
