Can Ronda Rousey carry WMMA on her shoulders?
Posted on August 16, 2012, 01:56 PM by Mike DrahotaRonda Rousey will step into the Strikeforce cage this weekend to defend her Women's Bantamweight for the first time. Facing former champion Sarah Kaufman, Rousey will look to extend her incredible streak of brutalizing first-round submission victories. However, there will be much more at stake than just another win for her. If she does win with her signature move, her popularity as the new face of Women's MMA will skyrocket for certain. WMMA has been lacking in a certain star quality since Gina Carano left the sport to try her hand at acting, and Rousey has stepped into that role with a quickness, relishing the chance at stardom. Can she single-handedly carry the weight of WMMA's relevancy upon her shoulders? It is a tall task, but perhaps she can.
For one, Rousey has the outspoken personality that so many fans of MMA love. Some may argue that she talked her way into her title shot against Miesha Tate last March. Rousey stated that fans would want to see that fight because both combatants are highly attractive women. She backed up her high amount of talk with her grappling skills in another impressive first-round armbar victory. This obviously catapulted Rousey into the limelight immediately, where she took advantage of the situation and parlayed the belt into mass media exposure. She has been and is available in many interviews, web videos, and press conferences, always willing to answer questions and hype her latest matchup. This is definitely something that WMMA needs a huge dose of after Carano exited the scene. Both Kaufman and Cristiane Santos are excellent fighters, but they have never found a spot in fans' hearts with their public appearances.
Many others argue that Rousey is just popular because she is pretty. Perhaps this has much to do with her popularity, but her skills in martial arts cannot be denied just to focus on this. Fighters in WMMA will always be judged for their beauty as well as their fighting, that is just a byproduct of the sport. While it may not be fair, it is the cold truth of the situation. Rousey is beautiful, but she is also an Olympic medal-winning Judo player, and even a fighter as accomplished as Nick Diaz has stated that he has never trained with anyone so skilled in the art. Will WMMA ever be featured in the UFC? That is highly debatable, but without Rousey, the chances are slim. Dana White has proclaimed himself a Ronda Rousey fan, believing she has a certain star quality that you cannot teach. This is why she has a great chance to carry WMMA as it's public face. White previously denied any possibility of women fighting in the UFC, now he can be seen taking photographs with Rousey. Rousey has a chance at catapulting WMMA into a higher level of popularity on Saturday, something that she has publicly wanted to do. Can Rousey carry the female side of the sport on her shoulders? While this is no small task, I think she can. What do you think?
Comments
I'm sick of seeing Ronda Rousey news
That is usually what happens when a fight card is coming up, a lot of related news for the main eventers
imagine that eh?
She must have been main-eventing every card since March then.
She's had 5 fights and hasn't even defended her belt yet. Also, despite the enormous hype surrounding her fight with Tate, their fight did pretty average ratings. What's clear is that she hasn't gotten anywhere near the level Carano reached at the zenith of her popularity and we all know how that turned out. I'm really hoping Kaufmann KTFO's Rousey and brings her back to earth.
All correct (except the end opinion which I don't really care about).
you got Cyborg and Gina two baddd women but one was roids and the other would rather act..both would bring here back to earth....cyborg would scare the chit out of her that dude is badddd
True, is anyone even giving Sarah Kaufman a legitimate chance?
I am. I could definitely see Ronda getting her to the ground, and getting a sub early. However, Kauffman has pretty good TDD. If she stops Rousey from getting the fight to the ground Ronda will get punished.
EH, agreed. Ronda may just be a one trick-pony.
Everyone seems to be forgetting Kaufman's slam KO. If Rousey can't get the armbar early she will be in for a beating.
really? so just because Kaufman's slammed someone she will punish Rousey if she's not submitted early? great explanation... NOT. Kaufman has a 0% chance of slamming Rousey who's bigger stronger and without a doubt a better grappler being a Judo Bronze Medalist. Armbar or not Rousey will control this fight from top position and avoid striking unless she's made some great changes to her stand up this last camp.
I want to see Rousey fight Cyborg just so that I can laugh childishly every time cyborg refers to her as honda housey during the buildup to the fight.
The answer is a clear "NO".
no ...but i could carry her on my face.
so you're saying you have a thing for linebackers?
Exactly dude. Ronda's hot, she just happens to fight for a living... Haha.
No, next question.
She could carry me on her shoulders... as long as being carried on the front side
All due respect to Rhonda because she's awesome. But I don't really care about women's MMA. I like it just a little bit more than the WNBA.
Am I the only one that notices that the "face of woman's MMA" is always the only pretty girl fighting. Rhonda hasn't shown any skills beyond Judo and armbars but she's the most popular WMMA fighter. Loose the ****y attitude and learn some stand up, then we can talk about WMMA on your shoulders
The thing about womens sports, is that its still womens sports. Tennis being one of the few that can do well and thats probably in part cause of how they dress, which is also helping womens mma. But lets be real here some bouncer thats never trained in mma could probably KO any of these chicks just like how a highschool basketball team could probably school the wnba.
Scary to think what the actual USA gold medalist could do in MMA, Kayla Harrison... i don't think she could get to 145lbs even though.
Finest chick in MMA and many above are acting jealous or gay one of the two. Yea, Hunter, thats pretty small. You would think there would be a lot more big angry redneck beeches that would pop up. Guess they are too busy chasing steer and cows.
So what you're saying is, you only watch sports because you are attracted to the athletes?
1 person cant carry a whole combat sport that works by pitting 2 people against each other.
if they can't put together a halfdecent division, she only has kaufmann and then a fight to be made with cyborg (if they can agree on a weight) before everyone loses interest again
it's not up to rousey to promote wmma, it's up to zuffa to collect the talent, and they havn't done much in 2012
Let them legalize Mens MMA where they want to, then they can focus on WMMA when they are not at risk of losing their momentum with policies moving in their direction. It's extremely difficult to persuade narrow minded court judges that 2 women beating each other for money, fame and ratings is going to be in their best interest when they haven't quite made that decision fully for the men yet.
All this, despite the fact that MMA is older than the game of Chess. (Predating gladiator and Egyptian times) practiced (whether sanctioned or not) in more countries than ANY other sport including soccer and hockey and that it is the sport with most natural inclination as people are born to **** and fight.
all this hype,fame with this chick,Marloes never got such attention,why is that? she beats Meisha and all of the sudden she's everywhere,no one ever talked about Meisha when she had the belt,Cyborg,whiy all this hype all of the sudden?get a clue people!!!
Because the hype train is late to the party. Rhonda is no F'n joke, the media is just behind the ball as usual and they are trying to make up for it by overdoing it now. Rhonda is definitely hot, but it's all secondary to how nasty he judo/armbars are.
*she
that was definitely not on purpose. We're not talking about cyborg here.
i think its more simple than that even.
danas on the verge of changing his mind about women fighting and rousey was in the right place at the right time, and it doesn't hurt that she gives a lot more interviews than everyone else