Ahead of inaugural MMA event on Netflix we are breaking down the top storylines from the card. Today, the many fights of Ronda Rousey.
In the past several months, Ronda Rousey has made several headlines. She has expressed the differences in the business of the UFC today. She has said she is helping to build a competitor to her former home in the hopes of making the landscape of MMA better. She has said that the current holder of her former title is either underpaid or overvalued. Oh, and she is excited to face off against the pioneer who opened the doors for her: Gina Carano.
“Rowdy” may only have one opponent coming up inside the cage, but she’s drawn attention to plenty of topics outside of it.
Rousey said that when she was negotiating with the UFC for her comeback that she was confident in her ability to galvanize the fanbase and sell the first MMA event she would be competing on for the first time since 2016. She was telling the truth. At every juncture, Rousey has delivered on the microphone to make headlines that dominated the news cycle in the sport. Only, she has built up not the UFC but easily their biggest competition in several years.
In this way, the partnership with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions makes all the sense in the world. Paul has long built his reputation as a disruptor, and Rousey has said that she hopes building a new destination in the MMA landscape will create competition so that more fighters will be able to be compensated for the value they bring to a promotion.
#OnThisDay in 2014, @RondaRousey defended her belt in just 1️⃣6️⃣ seconds ⏱
[ Watch more Ronda fights now on @UFCFightPass ] pic.twitter.com/mfGMU5xgPw
— UFC (@ufc) July 5, 2022
But fighting the machine is a broad battle and Rousey has put faces to her foes. Specifically, she’s taken umbrage with her former Olympic teammate and roommate who has now gone on to win the same UFC belt that she once held: Kayla Harrison. When Harrison was asked about the fight between Rousey and Carano, Harrison said that the fight was irrelevant given the amount of time the two have been away from the sport. Rousey responded by saying that if Harrison were indeed more relevant than her than why was her fight with Amanda Nunes not bringing them more money? As she said, if Harrison was right then it meant that Harrison was either “overvalued or underpaid.”
In one press tour, Rousey had said she wanted to build a competitor to the UFC and built up one of the biggest conflicts between female fighters seen in many years between herself and the current UFC champion. In short, she was building up a rival to the UFC while also creating a fight that fans wanted to see inside of it. Ironically, the individual she seems to hold the least amount of animosity towards in the whole cast involved in her return is the woman she is actually scheduled to fight in Carano.
Then there is the fight Rousey has managed to sidestep along the way: her health. In every appearance and video released, Rousey looks exceptionally fit ahead of her comeback. But by her own admission, both in her book and in multiple interviews, she has struggled since her time as an Olympic Judoka with concussions. Specifically she said blows to the head would leave her exceptionally stunned, more than she should’ve been given the severity (or more the lack thereof) of the shots. In fact, she said she fought so aggressively to finish fights quickly out of necessity so that there would be less chances for opponents to land shots that would hurt her.
It will be nearly three years since Rousey last had a match in the WWE. It will be ten years this December since her last MMA fight. That is a long time to let your head heal and recover. But, such longstanding issues are never guaranteed to go away completely. On paper, Rousey is heavily favored to get the job done again this Saturday. Should she still be compromised in some way, it could be the factor that blows the door off the hinges for a Carano upset.
