Author: Jeremy Botter

The Brock Lesnar era — glorious as it was for the UFC’s bottom line — is over, with Lesnar having scurried back to World Wrestling Entertainment with his tail between his legs and his wallet wide open.

Georges St-Pierre, consistently one of the UFC’s biggest pay per view draws, has only competed five times since the beginning of 2009 due to repeated injuries. He’s scheduled to return in November, but there’s no guarantee he’ll fight on a regular basis after that. Hell, there’s no guarantee he’ll even make it to his date with Carlos Condit without getting injured.

The aforementioned two men were the UFC’s two biggest stars. They were the ones who got the most publicity because they had the most star power. They drew the biggest pay per view numbers and helped sell the most tickets. In short, they were — along with Dana White — the faces of the company. 

And now — with both men either missing in action or outright finished in the UFC — who takes up that mantle? Who is the current face of the company?

There’s White, of course. He’ll always be the public face of the company, until the day he retires and stops his involvement with the UFC altogether. 

But I’m not talking about White. I’m talking about the fighter that the UFC consistently pushes in the media. They’re on the covers of magazines. They’re cageside at every show, whether they’re involved in the event or not. They’re being pushed to the mainstream and to the moon, and they’re keeping a publicity tour schedule that would seemingly make a real training camp all but impossible.

Who is that fighter? Right now, in 2012?

My answer may surprise you.

It’s Ronda Rousey.

Yes, I know she’s not actually in the UFC. But that’s a minor quibbling point.

You must remember that White and Lorenzo Fertitta have historically pushed their company brand as the entire sport, not just a single promotion operating amid a field of contenders. To them, the sport is the UFC, and that’s the way it’s marketed to the mainstream media.

And no other Zuffa employee has done as much media as Rousey, at least not in the last few months. Rousey is everywhere you turn, doing radio and television and the Espy’s and on the cover of ESPN’s Body issue. 

She’s got killer looks to go along with a deep athletic pedigree and undeniable talent in a sport she just started training in a few years ago. She also has a willingness to say the outlandish or brutally honest things that most other fighters strive to avoid like the plague. This trait makes her a media dream. Put a microphone in front of her, ask her a question about another fighter or a controversial topic, and then just sit back and let her work.

You may point to guys like Anderson Silva or Jon Jones. Yes, they’re very big stars, much bigger than Rousey on a global level. But Silva doesn’t speak English and does very few interviews, while Jones has been kept under lock and key for the last few months due to his legal issues.

It doesn’t matter that Rousey isn’t in the UFC. She’s still one of the most-public and most-pushed faces of the entire Zuffa brand. And if she keeps winning her fights, and continues being a controversial and magnetic figure in the media, Rousey will enter the UFC within the next two years — once the Showtime deal expires — as one of the biggest superstars in the sport.

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Gather around, kids. Let me tell you a little story.

Last December, when I was living in Las Vegas, I texted Dana White to see if I, and the folks at my old employer, could stop by his office for an interview. He responded immediately in the affirmative.

This wasn’t a new thing. White was always giving with his time. If he had a spare moment and we needed something, he’d do anything he could to help out.

We went up to Dana’s office, a white-walled and massive room on the second floor. I’m sure you’ve seen it plenty of times, but this is one cool office. It has all sorts of interesting artwork, from his infamous giant “F*CK” painting to the awesome photo of a gorilla hand holding a revolver. Like everything else in White’s life, he hand-selected this artwork, and everything has a reason for being there.

As we typically did, we hung out for a bit before doing the interview, rarely talking about the UFC at all.

“Hey, check this out,” White said to me. 

He motioned towards a corner of his office. It’s essentially a closet, spaced off from the rest of the office by a wall. This is White’s real office. It has his computer, phone and all of the other things—besides his trusty cell phone, of course—that he needs to run the biggest fighting company in the world.

White proceeded to show us a video of his recent vacation to Australia where he took his kids surfing. The vacation lasted over two weeks, and I found myself struck by a two questions: Dana White takes vacations? When did this start?

I tell you this story mostly because it answers the question I posed in the title. Dana White doesn’t need to take a step back because Dana White started taking baby steps back long ago.

The thought of White going on vacation, even for a few days, would have been a ridiculous notion even a few years ago when he was burning the candle at both ends and only getting off Zuffa’s private jet to attend business meetings or promote fights. That schedule—though still incredibly busy by “normal people” standards—has calmed down considerably in the past 18 months.

If you’re asking me if the UFC would be better off without White as the public face of the company?

That’s a stupid question, honestly, and it has an easy answer: no. Not only no, but a resounding hell no.

Simply put, the UFC would not be where it is today had White not been at the helm and been the public face of the company for the past decade. His willingness to sell his product and interact with fans, both in person and via Twitter, make him one of the most accessible sporting figures in the world. White’s connection to the fans via Twitter has both created—and more recently—canceled, fights that were in the planning stages.

White wasn’t alone in turning the UFC into a powerhouse in live event and pay-per-view promotion. There are a ton of talented people in those Zuffa offices that work long hours seven days a week to help push the brand forward.

But he played a large part in it. His proclivity for saying exactly what’s on his mind resonates with his fans. He’s the right man for the culture created around the sport.

Will that always be the case? I don’t know, and it’s hard to decide. There may come a day when he’ll need to step aside and bring in a cleaner-cut, more “normal” sporting authority to assume the role as the public face of the UFC. 

But for now, he’s right where he belongs.

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