No mistake about it. Ronda Rousey was the showcase.
UFC 190, which took place Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, was more than just a vehicle for the biggest star going in MMA. It was a test case to answer one question: How far can Rousey carry an event with nothing but her own broad celebrity shoulders?
Bethe Correia, the challenger to her women’s bantamweight belt, was a good foil to Rousey in every way except the fighting. After besting Rousey’s lower-tier buddies, Correia baited Rousey with verbal jabs that the champ was only too happy to gobble up. The verbal sparring continued for months, with varying degrees of success.
The only problem was, eventually, Correia’s body had to cash the check her mouth scrawled out. That was UFC 190.
It didn’t get much better from there. In the co-main event, aging Brazilian stars Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira fought for the nostalgic devotion of their countrymen. It was a matchup that could not have been any less meaningful, even in a field as thin as the UFC light heavyweight division.
Obviously, these were just the expectations of MMA’s self-styled intelligentsia. Could the athletes who do their talking in the cage strike a blow to us pointy-headed keyboard warriors? There were 13 bouts at UFC 190, so there was ample opportunity to do so. The final stat lines, as always, only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers from Rio de Janeiro.