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Olympian, UFC Hall of Famer, actress and current WWE entertainer Ronda Rousey is making her way from the squared circle to the open waters to help kick off the 30th anniversary of Shark Week.
Ronda Rousey Uncaged, a one-hour special, will premiere Sunday, July 22, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery Channel. If you don’t have cable or can’t get to a TV, you can watch the Discovery Channel online via Philo TV, a cable-free, live-TV streaming service.
Not only is Philo the cheapest option among all the streaming services at just $16 per month, but you can sign up for a free trial without having to enter any billing information. You’ll get two days for free right off the bat, then if you enter your billing information after that, you will get an additional five days free. After signing up, you can watch a live stream of Ronda Rousey Uncaged on your computer via the Philo website, or on your phone, tablet or streaming device via the Philo app.
Additionally, if you can’t watch live, Philo also allows you to “save” (DVR) programs and watch them later. And even if you forget to DVR the show, Philo also comes with a 72-hour rewind feature, which allows you to replay any show or event that has aired in the previous three days.
Preview
The epitome of toughness, Rousey has never backed down to a challenge–not even an uncaged dive with the dangerous mako shark.
Paul de Gelder, a former Navy diver who trained Rousey, explained what is was like to work with the 31-year-old star:
It was a mind-blowing experience. The fastest shark on the planet and one of the fiercest. This is the shark that catches the fastest fish. (Rousey) was like a kid in a candy store.
We had to build her up over time. We didn’t want to freak her out with one bad experience that might set her up for failure. So, we had played with kid gloves first. We had her in a full chainmail suit. She wanted to take that chainmail suit after five minutes.
She wanted to progress so quickly, we had to hold her back a little bit and just let her know, ‘We know you’re confident, but we really don’t want you losing any limbs.’
And that can happen very easily in this situation. She pulled back the reins a little bit and listened and paid attention to all of us trying to keep her safe. She really was great to work with. She is used to being coached. She is used to listening. She is used to complex tasks. She did really well in the underwater environment seeing as she had very little experience.
Rousey, who had never dove prior to training for this special, was feeding a bull shark–the same kind of shark responsible for De Gelder losing an arm and leg during a 2009 attack–by her eighth dive. Then, after a “diving boot camp” in which she got comfortable performing difficult tasks underwater, she was able swim with the Mako in New Zealand.
“She is one incredible human being,” de Gelder said. “You know how much fun it is to do something generally you might not want to do yourself, but you go with a kid or someone who has never experienced it before. You just see it light up their face, and all of a sudden, you are having the time of your life.”