UFC’s biggest star suffers from lack of quality opponents

At the ESPYs (America's rather lame attempt at a sporting Oscars) earlier this month, Ronda Rousey collected the "Fighter of the Year" gong and then dissed the man she'd outpolled. "I wonder how Floyd [Mayweather] feels being beat by a woman for once," she said. "I'd like to see you pretend to not know who I am now."

Some saw a feminist delivering a blow for her gender. Others accused her of being too flip about domestic violence. However, Rousey was just settling a score. Twelve months earlier, Mayweather claimed to have never heard of the UFC bantamweight champion. No way he could say that today.

Over the past year, Rousey has graced the cover of Sports Illustrated which, apparently forgetting about Serena Williams, described her as "the world's most dominant athlete". She's had high-profile cameos in Entourage and Fast and Furious 7, and is set to start filming her biggest movie role yet alongside Mark Wahlberg in Mile 22.

Then there was a star turn partnering The Rock at Wrestlemania 31 where she brought the skills that won her judo bronze at the 2008 Olympics to bear against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.

With apologies to Conor McGregor and his rabid fan-base, here is UFC’s biggest star.

Decent contest

In Rio de Janeiro this Saturday night, Brazil's Bethe Correia will be the latest to attempt to wrest away Rousey's crown. For a sport battling an endemic domestic violence problem, the optics of having two women headline a pay-per-view promotion like UFC 190 are important but the chances of seeing a decent contest are minimal. Like Katie Taylor in the boxing ring, and other pioneers in the fledgling era of any sport, Rousey undoubtedly suffers from the paucity of quality opponents.

Her last three bouts have lasted 14, 16 and 66 seconds. If that pattern of savage brevity has spawned comparisons with the impatient way a young Mike Tyson used to demolish pretenders, it has also caused concern about how much longer punters will pay $60 (€54) to watch. Undefeated in 11 outings as a professional, nine of those contests ended in around a minute or less, most culminating in opponents submitting to her trademark armbar, a technique learned on the judo mat from her mother, AnnMaria De Mars, herself a former world champion judoka.

Like McGregor, Rousey is brash, articulate (ironically she started life with serious speech impediments), and comfortable in the multi-media spotlight in a way that has helped her amplify her fame far beyond the sport, a recent Rolling Stone profile dubbing her "the most dangerous woman in the world". She has an intriguing back story and an awareness of how to market herself, openly admitting that publicly calling out Mayweather generated just as much coverage as she calculated it would.

After failing to win gold in Beijing, the California native suffered a post-Olympic hangover, realising that being the first American woman to make the podium in judo was worth, as she put it, just “10 grand and a handshake”. There followed a brief detour off the rails, tending bar, smoking weed, popping Vicodin, and, for a time, even living in her Honda. Then, she discovered mixed martial arts and a potential road to redemption.

That road is now paved with lucrative endorsement deals for everything from jeans to video games. Indeed, such is the global reach of her fame that in UFC-obsessed Brazil, she’s currently fronting a Budweiser television commercial. Not that any of this is likely to go to her head.

“Celebrities get surrounded by people that benefit off them in some way,” said Rousey. “Every single person that they see in the day either gains financial stability, status, something from that person. And so the people around you reflect reality back to you.

“I’m very lucky in that I’m surrounded by plenty of people that will not hesitate for one second to tell me to go f**k myself if I said something stupid. Or if I have an idea that’s nuts, they’ll tell me, ‘That’s a crazy idea’, and I’ll have to have a debate with them and be able to justify myself.”

Different tune

A few years back, Dana White, president of UFC, staunchly declared women would never fight in his octagon. These days, he sings a different tune.

“She’s the greatest athlete I’ve ever worked with,” said White. “She’ll do the work of 20 male fighters.”

A man whose default setting is somewhere due north of hyperbole, White claims Rousey’s sheer brilliance, rather than plateauing ratings, convinced him he was wrong about her gender. That may well be the case. But, as is usual with all things UFC, there is a suspicion her greatness is, ahem, slightly exaggerated.

For all the hoopla surrounding her fight in Brazil, the bookies make her an unbackable favourite, and most informed speculation centres on whether the underwhelming Correia, who has never defeated a top-10 ranked opponent, can endure for even 30 seconds.

Of course, the build-up has still been franked with the obligatory distasteful and, cynics suspect, carefully scripted incidents of name-calling.

“Please don’t kill yourself – don’t commit suicide, because I will give you the rematch,” said Correia, in an obvious reference to the fact Rousey’s father Ron took his own life when she was eight years old.

“Suicide is no joke or selling point,” replied Rousey. “My father will be with me the day I hand you the comeuppance you deserve.”

The day will be Saturday.