Ronda Rousey celebrates after beating Cat Zingano.Photograph by Mark J. Terrill / AP
Ronda Rousey is an aspiring action star and a celebrity endorser, a connoisseur of swimwear and an accomplished Instagrammer. But she likes to reassure interviewers that her day job is her top priority. “The only reason Hollywood is even interested in me is because of fighting,” she said, in an article published on the Web site of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. “I have to protect that. I know how people are going to remember me—and that’s as a fighter.”
In the span of a few years, Rousey has become perhaps the U.F.C.’s biggest star, a marketable personality who also happens to be an all-time great. In her division, which is bantamweight (or a hundred and thirty-five pounds), she is as dominant, and in her own way as intimidating, as Mike Tyson was during his late-nineteen-eighties heyday. As Tyson did, Rousey sometimes struggles to find opponents whom fans consider credible. A year ago, fighting an accomplished wrestler named Sara McMann, Rousey was approximately a four-to-one favorite. (The fight lasted just over a minute, and ended after Rousey crumpled McMann with a knee to the midsection.) This past weekend, she fought Cat Zingano, widely thought to be a tougher opponent, with a better résumé. Nevertheless, the oddsmakers weren’t impressed: this time, Rousey was the favorite at around eight-to-one.
Rousey’s rise has given the U.F.C., and its fans, something to celebrate at a time when the company is undergoing a tricky transition from a scrappy upstart to a popular—and heavily scrutinized—athletic organization. The U.F.C. is by far the biggest player in the sport that is generally known as mixed martial arts, or M.M.A. It aspires to become the fighting equivalent of the N.F.L., a ubiquitous brand that is nearly synonymous with its sport, and there are signs of growing mainstream appeal, including a broadcast arrangement with Fox and a sponsorship deal with Reebok.
But in 2014, the U.F.C. was plagued by injured fighters, cancelled fights, and pay-per-view broadcasts that didn’t seem to capture the imagination of its fans. The difficulties have continued this year. Anderson Silva, a beloved legend, returned from a horrific leg injury, and won, but was revealed to have tested positive for anabolic steroids. (Last month, the U.F.C. announced a new drug-testing program.) And Jon Jones, widely considered the best fighter in any weight class, recently tested positive for cocaine, after which he was fined by the U.F.C. but not suspended. (The Nevada State Athletic Commission, which conducted the test, bans cocaine only in the twelve hours before a fight.) “What I will say is I messed up,” Jones said. “It wasn’t a mistake. I can’t call it a mistake because I consciously did it.”
This past weekend’s event, which was broadcast on pay-per-view, was originally supposed to have a different headliner: Chris Weidman, the middleweight champion. But after Weidman suffered an injury in training camp—fractured rib cartilage—the event became the latest installment of the Ronda Rousey show. Her fight became the main event, and her shadow hung over the co-main event, which matched a former boxer and kickboxer named Holly Holm against a sturdy but unexceptional opponent named Raquel Pennington. This fight was, perhaps, an audition: a chance for Holm to prove herself deserving of the opportunity to fight Rousey. In the event, Holm won her fight but failed the audition—her victory over Pennington required three rounds and a split decision.
A little while later, when Rousey arrived at the cage, even her biggest fans might have nurtured a faint hope that Zingano would find a way to test her. The longest fight of Rousey’s career was against Miesha Tate, in 2013: they got into the third round before Rousey grabbed Tate’s arm and pulled it backward, convincing Tate to tap out, thereby trading a chance (however slim) at victory for the certainty of relief. The same year, Zingano also fought Tate, and also stopped her in the third round, battering Tate with fists and knees and elbows until Tate dropped to the mat, bloodied and broken. It wasn’t impossible, was it, to imagine her doing something similar to Rousey?
It was. Rousey’s dominance gives her a particular mental advantage: it inspires her opponents to think that they have to do something spectacular, or strange, in order to beat her. On Saturday night, Zingano began the fight by skipping toward Rousey and then jumping with her knee raised, in hopes of hitting Rousey in the face or maybe the chest. Rousey caught her without any hesitation or surprise—she looked as if she had ordered a leaping Zingano weeks ago, had been tracking the shipment of her leaping Zingano online, and was now pleased to sign for delivery. Rousey hooked her left arm behind Zingano’s head, pushed her to the mat, and then flipped her over, climbed onto her back, and extracted her right arm. As Rousey twisted Zingano’s right arm, Zingano immediately used her left arm to tap out. The fight took fourteen seconds, which was two seconds fewer than Rousey’s last fight. But Rousey’s movements were so quick and so fluid that it was hard to see them all, even in slow-motion replays. In a notably unfiltered post-fight interview, Zingano still seemed to be processing it. “I want to do it again,” she said, shaking her head. “I—just—f*ck.”
There are some people, believe it or not, who might question the wisdom of paying $64.99 to watch Rousey spend fourteen seconds proving something that every M.M.A. fan already knew. But then, there were pay-per-view customers who groused when, in 1988, Tyson needed only ninety-one seconds to brutalize Michael Spinks. No doubt some of those same grousers, over twenty-five years later, brag about having seen that fight live. Upsets are awesome. But it’s pretty awesome, too, to watch a great fighter demonstrate the vastness of the distance between greatness and goodness.
The only threatening opponent for Rousey now is Cris Cyborg, whom Rousey disdains as a cheat (three years ago, Cyborg tested positive for a steroid), and who currently fights at featherweight, or a hundred and forty-five pounds—ten pounds above Rousey’s division. On Friday night, Cyborg looked positively scary as she walked through a lightly regarded fighter named Charmaine Tweet. She simply strode up to Tweet and beat her bloody, refusing to acknowledge that Tweet might do anything in return. There is also Bethe Correia, who has made herself a possible opponent by beating two of Rousey’s friends, and by engaging in some strategic trash talk. But in the meantime, Rousey seems ready to take a break from fighting: on Monday, Variety reported that Rousey has won her first leading role, in an action movie called “Mile 22,” to be produced by Peter Berg. Whenever she returns, fans will probably expect more of the same: long odds and a short night. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t be happy to watch—and to pay—anyway.
