Magazine Archives: Ronda Rousey’s Groundbreaking Career

By Evan Wheeler from FightfulMag.com issue 3

In January 2011, UFC PresidentDana Whitesaid that women would never compete inside the Octagon. A 24-year-old former Olympic bronze medalist would make her professional MMA debut two months later in March 2011 and win via submission in just 25 seconds by way of an armbar. Ronda Rouseywould be an unforeseen force of nature entering the mixed martial arts realm and by February 2013, had altered the sport’s history. In just six fights that lasted just under eight minutes, she’d win every fight with an armbar on her way to claiming the Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Title.

Her victories over fellow Strikeforce champions Miesha Tateand Sarah Kaufmanin her two title fights with the famed San Jose, California-based promotion would be the beginning of Rousey’s ascension to superstardom. Kaufman and Tate had a combined 29 professional bouts at the time, nearly three times the experience of Rousey, but it didn’t matter. She disposed of the pair of tough veterans in just over five minutes, dislocating Tate’s elbow in their heated first outing, which led to an ESPY win. She turned her ability to get a submission into having the same fear-inducing effect on opponents as a striker with one punch knockout power.

Rousey became undeniable. White had to eat his words from the previous year like some spoiled sardines. Women’s MMA had pioneers likeGina Carano, Julie Kedzie, Cris Cyborg, and Kaufman before her, but Ronda was an anomaly. She had the beauty that Carano possessed and the same finishing ability, although in a drastically different fashion in the way that Cyborg did. The major difference with Ronda is that she also had the showmanship that no women’s fighter before her had ever displayed. Her package to sell a fight was something new to the women’s side of MMA. Plus, she had the oratorical skills combined with a sharp wit to dismantle her opponents verbally. White announced that Rousey would be the first female fighter to ever be signed to the promotion in November 2012, dramatically shifting from his stance a mere 22 months prior.

“She has the whole package,” White said about signing Rousey. “I’ve never been interested in women’s MMA. First, there weren’t enough girls to create an entire women’s division. When I talk about a superstar or standout, people talk about Gina Carano and talk about all these others. I'm telling you: this girl, she’s nasty. She might be beautiful on the outside, she’s a Diaz brother on the inside. She’s a real fighter, and she’s very talented. She has the credentials, the pedigree, everything. And she has the ‘it’ factor. I think she’s going to be a big superstar.”

In her UFC debut, Rousey defeatedLiz Carmouchein the main event at UFC 157 on February 23, 2013, to extend her first-round armbar streak to seven. She even did it in style, surviving Carmouche taking her back to almost secure a rear-naked choke of her own. More importantly, the event did 450,000 pay-per-view buys, solidifying Rousey’s place as a star in the sport, the viability of women’s MMA and White’s investment in her. The start of Rousey-Mania also came at a pivotal transitional period for the promotion.

During 2013, the UFC would lose its two biggest pay-per-view draws in Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva. The longstanding Canadian Welterweight Champion took a hiatus from the sport after UFC 167 in November, while the Brazilian icon suffered a gruesome leg break a month later at UFC 168. This was on the heels of losing the former UFC Heavyweight Champion and WWE SuperstarBrock Lesnar, another massive pay-per-view star for the company, two years previously when he retired from active competition after UFC 141 in December 2011. The UFC held 13 pay-per-view events in 2013 that brought in an estimated total of 6.08 million buys. The four cards that St-Pierre and Silva competed on that year were responsible for 3.16 million (52%) of those buys the company obtained. There clearly was a massive gap to be filled in and star power that was now needed.

Alongside phenom and then UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones, Rousey became the anchor for the UFC to build around in 2014 and 2015. The crossover stardom began, and her pop culture appeal started to massively grow with it. She appeared in The Expendablesand the Fast & Furiousfilm franchises, as well as the Entouragefilm. The hype surrounding a Rousey fight became similar to that of a Mike Tysonouting in the mid-to-late 1980s. Fans would turn each title defense for the former Olympian into a spectacle, either cheering for the rollercoaster ride to continue or praying for it to fall off the tracks because of Rousey’s brashness and borderline arrogance at times. Either way, people were tuning in to see her fight, and the UFC had found their new queen to build the kingdom around.

At UFC 170 and UFC 175, Rousey’s two Octagon appearances in 2014, she obliterated fellow Olympic medalist Sara McMann and veteran Alexis Davis in under a minute and a half. She didn’t submit them like her previous seven victims though, this time she TKO’d them. Both fights brought in a reported combined 895,000 buys and live gates of nearly six million. The mystique had reached a fever pitch, and Rousey had been anointed the unstoppable force with no end in sight. 2015 would see Rousey’s transcendent run as a UFC Champion crash right at its peak.

She once again fought two times, first againstCat Zinganoat UFC 184 and then against rival Bethe Correirain her home country of Brazil at UFC 190. Rousey continued the highlight-reel finishes, defeating both women in 48 seconds, with the Correira victory launching her stardom into another universe. She knocked out the Brazilian challenger in front of a hostile crowd, face planting her to the canvas with a right hand. Ronda had a devastating finishing move in her ability to snatch armbars and knockout power to match. Nobody could beat her now, the masses thought. Both events, headlined by Rousey, garnered a combined 1.5 million pay-per-view buys, placing her in a category all to herself. She had become the face of the promotion, just four years after White proclaimed women would never grace the Octagon.

Now, as the cover athlete of the new EA Sports UFC 2 video game alongside Irishman Conor McGregor, a regular magazine cover athlete, commercial spokesperson, and celebrity, Rousey had become the poster girl of the sport. However, on November 15, 2015, at UFC 193 in front of the biggest attendance in the promotion’s history at the time with nearly 57,000 at Docklands Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, the axis of Ronda’s superstar unbeatable status would come to a screeching halt. Former world champion boxer Holly Holm dethroned Rousey via a devastating second-round knockout due to a picture-perfect left head kick.

Holm had exposed Rousey’s flaws and lack of growth, primarily with her striking skills, while also sending her mystique of invincibility crashing down with it. She dissected Ronda’s lack of basic fundamentals in terms of her lunging forward with her punches, constantly keeping her head on the centerline, and the deficiencies in her footwork with her feet getting ahead of her punches. Holm shut down the grappling exchanges with Rousey too, showcasing a clear difference in size and strength that the future UFC Hall of Famer had never experienced before. She had bullied the bully while humiliating her behind her superior technique, and like most bullies, Ronda crumbled.

UFC commentator Joe Roganwould call the fight the biggest upset in the company’s history, and it would be historic for another reason. The knockout loss to Holm would be Rousey’s largest event to date, drawing 1.1 million pay-per-view buys, a mark to this day that has it placed as the eleventh biggest buyrate in UFC history. In a pinnacle moment and on the biggest stage of her career, Rousey had stumbled in epic proportion. The defeat didn’t just derail her hype train, it also exposed some of her weaknesses outside of the cage.

Her head coach Edmund Tarverdyanand his corner advice during the Holm fight was the subject of heavy scrutiny. Revealing a lack of tactical acumen in Rousey’s training camp, to go along with poking holes in the claims of Tarverdyan saying she was knocking out boxers at the famed Wildcard Boxing Gym. The promotion and media making her out to be a god-like figure, combined with Rousey’s own personal antics and a poor showcase of sportsmanship in past bouts made the aftermath of the loss that much more impactful. The haters were in full effect, and Rousey showed maybe she wasn’t as equipped mentally to handle the strenuous fame that was bestowed upon her.

Rousey wouldn’t fight again for 13 months, freezing out much of the MMA world. She would make her return to the sport and comeback at UFC 207 on December 30, 2016, against newly-crowned UFC Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes. The UFC centered the promotion of the fight around Rousey’s return, putting Nunes on the backburner as somewhat of an afterthought in the homecoming of the Octagon’s first queen. This was even despite the fact that Rousey refused to speak to the media before the fight, seemingly burnt out by the obligations that came with her fame. What was promoted as a coronation turned into a massacre as it took Nunes just 48 seconds to explode a series of punches on Rousey to finish her in one of the most brutal beatings in a title fight ever inside of the Octagon.

Nunes had put the nail in the coffin of one of the most magical, enigmatic runs in UFC history. Once again, fully exposing the lack of quality coaching from Tarverdyan and growth in Rousey’s striking. Ronda’s failure to address the media following the loss and overall response to it has left her in poor standing with the mixed martial arts fanbase ever since. The once endeared rebel and barrier-breaking former champion who came out to rock legend Joan Jett’s iconic 1981 hit “Bad Reputation,” in a weirdly poetic way, couldn’t face the music of the realities of her own shortcomings as a fighter.

Ultimately, Ronda Rousey’s run in the UFC is one that was historic and groundbreaking in a multitude of ways. She took women’s MMA to a different stratosphere than was ever thought imaginable, and her losses to both Nunes and Holm were key points in the evolution of the women’s side of the sport. Her rise is also a cautionary tale of what happens when promotional and media hype distorts a fighter’s actual abilities, as well as the dangers of what fame can enable in us all. Rousey was a victim of her own hype, fame enabling her ego and insecurities, and having the yes men around her to continue to reaffirm those toxic traits. She paid the price for her celebrity and stardom as much as any fighter in MMA history.

I hope that her legacy can one day be given its proper respect and reflection from the MMA community. Rousey represented lightning in the bottle of sorts, and while it might’ve never been destined for longevity, the importance of her presence in the sport’s lineage cannot be understated. A complex character who is a living time capsule into a brief moment in MMA’s existence. Rousey’s five-year UFC career will probably never be duplicated, and while she might’ve architectured her own demise, her place in the sport cannot ever be taken away.

Evan Wheelerhas contributed to Fightful MMA since 2020, where he writes news, long-form features and does event coverage of major UFC shows.

Twitter: @Evzsz