As of writing this, we are two days removed from UFC 190 and we all know which fighter has been receiving the most buzz after the event…
…That fighter is of course Stefan Struve who picked apart Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira on the feet for three rounds in a fight that was more than likely Big Nog’s last appearance inside the Octagon, thus ending a career that has lasted over a decade and has produced many memorable moments. Oh, and some fighter named Ronda Rousey won too.
Jokes aside, Ronda Rousey once again showed us why she is without a doubt the best female fighter in the world. Hell, I’d even go as far as saying that with her performance at UFC 190, Rousey showed the world that she is the most dominant fighter in the UFC. And yes, there is a difference between “the best fighter” in the UFC and the “most dominant” fighter in the UFC. Ronda dominates her opponents. This is regardless of how thin her division is or how large the gap in skill is between Rousey and her opponents. You don’t see Jose Aldo or Demetrious Johnson finishing their opponents in less than a minute very often now, do you? Rousey brawled with the brawler in Bethe Correia, made her respect her power and hand speed, and ultimately made Correia faceplant like she dropped her contacts and tried to pick them back up with her face. This tweet sums it up perfectly.
Following UFC 190, I didn’t know what to write about. Should I write about the Rousey/Correia fight and Rousey’s future in the UFC or should I write about the superstar Rousey has become before and especially after her fight with Correia? I couldn’t really choose so this article will be part 1 of my Rousey recap. In this first installment, I will cover Rousey’s stardom but don’t worry my analytic article of the UFC 190 main event and Rousey’s future will come later on this week. I want to do some extra research before I give you guys in-depth analysis of Rousey’s performance.
Another reason why I wanted to cover the buzz behind Ronda Rousey first is because I’ve never seen this much talk on social media about an MMA event before in my life. From Kobe Bryant, to Lil Wayne, to even the guy on One Direction that isn’t named Harry or Zayn (I still miss you, btw), it seems every major celebrity and their grandmothers tweeted in support for Ronda Rousey going into her title defense in Rio de Janeiro. In fact, #UFC190 was tweeted about 993k times. That’s an outstanding number for an MMA event especially when considering that #UFC189, which was so far the best card of the year, had the best fight of the year, AND had two title fights (one being headlined by some guy named Conor McGregor) was only tweeted 424k times. This is even more mind-blowing when looking at the PPV portion of the card as a whole. To put it bluntly, most of the card besides the co-main, which I didn’t have high expectations for, and main event, was mediocre. Yes, there were some fun moments and highlights but for the most part, this seven-fight card that lasted well into the night dragged on for the majority of the show (I’m not pointing any fingers *cough* *cough* TUF Finale fights). In addition, I saw numerous posts on Instagram of UFC 190 viewing parties which I only see when Filipinos watch Manny Pacquiao fights. Not even the return of Anderson Silva, arguably the GOAT in MMA, at UFC 183 caused any videos of drunken fans yelling and screaming at their TVs to appear on my Instagram timeline. So how did this all happen? How did Ronda Rousey become such a superstar in not only MMA but a bonafide A-list celebrity?
I could go on for hours about Ronda Rousey’s MMA career and all the steps she took from being a prospect fighting at 145 pounds on Strikeforce Challengers cards to being the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion and a mega-star but I won’t. To put it simply, “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey has the whole package. She’s a smart, charismatic woman who can submit you in the Octagon just as fast as she can knock you unconscious. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that she is pretty damn good looking to boot. Ronda is changing how people view beauty and how they view women’s sports. Her combination of beauty and skill paired with her “I don’t give a damn what you think” attitude has turned Rousey into one of the most captivating figures in all of sports. Some say that Rousey is the Mike Tyson of MMA but she’s not. She’s not Floyd, Ali, or any other great combat athlete. She’s uniquely Ronda Rousey, an athlete who appears only once in every lifetime. No one in any combat sport, male or female, has made an impact like Ronda Rousey and that’s a good thing.
In addition, one thing that I don’t see too often mentioned in Ronda Rousey articles is that the timing of Rousey’s arrival to the scene couldn’t have been better. For some odd reason, a lot of people are just now starting to realize that women can do anything just as well as their male counterparts. Think about it. Why wasn’t Gina Carano as big a star as Rousey back in her prime in around 2008/2009? She certainly was beautiful and definitely kicked ass back when she was an active MMA fighter. Sure, she’s starting to gain stardom now but it’s for her skills in the cinemas, not her fighting skills which she gave up on years ago. Why hasn’t Cris Cyborg received as much attention as Rousey? She’s just as dominant as Ronda, demolishing most of her MMA opponents in less than a round but you don’t see her making appearances in movies or in the WWE ring. The difference between these two fighters and Rousey is that Rousey is in her prime during an era that needs a strong, beautiful female to empower women. Rousey has become an inspiration to many females and has shown the world that a woman can do anything a man can do just as well, if not better. Now I’m not saying that if Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg were in their primes and in the UFC today that they could surpass Rousey in terms of popularity but there’s a reason why thousands of young girls are taking up MMA, kickboxing, and Jiu-Jitsu classes nowadays compared to back in 2008/2009.
Ronda Rousey is the UFC’s biggest star because she crosses boundaries into the mainstream like no other UFC star. And to think, Dana White said himself years ago that we’ll never see women fight in the Octagon. Oh how the times have changed.
technicalelbows 