(Bret Hartman/For The Washington Post)

Ronda Rousey was in Australia on Wednesday to hype her November fight against Holly Holm at UFC 193, but it was her defense of fellow UFC star Nick Diaz, who was recently suspended for five years for marijuana use, that got the undefeated women’s bantamweight champion the most fired up.

“It’s so not right,” she said, joining the growing number of voices who have said Diaz’s punishment, handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Monday, seemed to outsize the offense.

“…I have to say something,” Rousey said at the press conference. “I’m against them testing for weed at all.”

She reasons the recreational drug isn’t performance-enhancing, so it shouldn’t be considered an offense in or around a fight.

[Rousey explains why she gets emotional before fights]

“It has nothing to do with the competition and it’s only because of political reasons they say, ‘Oh, it’s only for your safety to keep you from hurting yourself because you’re out there,’ ” she said. “You know what? Then why don’t they test for all of the other things that could possibly hurt us, that we could be under the influence of while we’re out there? There’s no reason for them to be testing for weed.”

Diaz, 32, tested positive for the drug after losing his middleweight bout against Anderson Silva at UFC 183 in January. Perhaps highlighting what some see as injustice, Silva also tested positive for drugs, but not for marijuana — for banned steroids. The NSAC, however, only handed the Brazilian fighter a one-year ban.

[Diaz lashes out about his five-year ban]

This fact was not lost on Rousey, who referred to Diaz as “a really close and dear friend” on Wednesday.

“It’s so unfair that if one person tests for steroids that could actually really hurt a person, and another person smokes a plant that makes them happy, he gets suspended for five years,” she said, “whereas the guy who could have hurt someone so much that he could have died in there gets a slap on the wrist.”