According to a report earlier today from Vulture, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey will be appearing on ABC’s upcoming reboot of Battle of the Network Stars. The show will be helmed by a couple of ESPN veterans in Mike Greenberg and Joe Tessitore. News of the reboot first made the rounds earlier this year. DeMarcus Ware will also be joining the show as a permanent captain alongside Rousey. The two will oversee a roster of celebrities.
The original Battle of the Network Stars originated in 1976, and ran all the way until 1988. Hosted by Howard Cosell, it featured television stars from several networks competing against each other in a host of sporting events.
The new series will run over the course of ten episodes, with new celebrities on board for each outing (outside coaches Rousey and Ware). The celebs in question will no longer represent specific networks, as in the original, but instead come from specific TV niches: sitcoms, child stars, TV lawyers, and so on.
For Rousey, the move comes following her appearance on NBC’s Blindspot. The former UFC champ also has the feature film Mile 22 in pre-production. Rousey, a former Olympic medalist, hasn’t been seen in the octagon since December 2016, when she lost her comeback bout to current champion Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. Prior to that, she had suffered her first career loss at UFC 193 in November 2015, being knocked out by Holly Holm.
