A year after being knocked out and mostly vanishing from public view, Ronda Rousey is set to reappear Friday night at UFC 207. The rest of the week, though? Well, Rousey has apparently struck a deal with UFC management to mostly avoid the media, an unprecedented arrangement for a UFC headliner.
Remember, it was only earlier this year when the UFC claimed a no-tolerance policy for such a blackout, blowing up its own landmark UFC 200 event by pulling Conor McGregor from the card after he balked at arriving early in Las Vegas to do media.
“I respect Conor as a fighter and I like him as a person, but you can’t decide not to show up to these things,” UFC President Dana White said at the time (h/t MMA Fighting). “You have to do it.”
Of course, things have changed radically in the UFC since then after ownership changed hands. The reshaping of the organization has seem some subtle shifts and some seismic ones. This one, however, lies somewhere in between.
On one hand, Rousey has had an immense impact on the UFC’s women’s divisions and has attained a level of fame where she probably doesn’t require a huge media push behind her. On the other hand, it seems unfair for her to have such a perk when others like McGregor received harsh penalties for even requesting alterations to the media schedule.
Joining me to discuss the situation is Lead MMA writer Chad Dundas.
Mike Chiappetta: I would not say that this is an important development, but it is a bizarre one. For much of her career, Rousey has been excellent with the media. She is engaging, smart and interesting. But for some reason, she seems to believe her engagement with the media played a major part in her loss to Holly Holm. Either that, or that if she can cut out those obligations, she’ll be more focused come fight time. At last that’s the idea you get if you read Ramona Shelburne’s recent piece in ESPN The Magazine.
That makes some sense, I suppose. Or at least, I can understand how she might rationalize that to herself. Most fighters are not conditioned to believe someone else could have simply outperformed them on a given day. In their minds, they have to be the best, and if they happen to lose, there must be a concrete reason they can address, tweak or nullify. And once that adjustment is put into place, everything will come back into alignment.
Rousey seems to be taking this to the extreme. I get it. If you suffer a world-shattering loss as she did, there has to be a desire to want to captain every single part of your return the way you want, so that whether you win or lose, you will know that you were in control and that the result is solely on you.
The problem here is more of a public perception than a private crisis. Rousey had no problem courting the media—and by extension, the fans—on the come up. She had a great story, she was happy to share it, and we were happy to tell it. When she won, she exulted in the glory.
But when she lost, there was zero accountability.
There is a small (and unfortunately loud) segment of people who revel in antagonizing the vanquished. But by and large, most people understand failure. It’s something we can all identify with, and in a way, someone who recovers from a spectacular failure is more easily romanticized than a dominant winner. By standing up and discussing her last year—her lost year—Rousey would have mostly been looked at positively.
By being a bad loser, Rousey (who also was a poor winner) removed that from the equation. There will still be those who root her on, and that’s fine. But her attitude isn’t one most people can identify with. It’s not exactly a quitter’s mentality but something like it.
What do you think, Chad? Is this solely a media issue? Does the rest of the wider world care?
Chad Dundas: The knee-jerk reaction of most MMA fans will be to fire off a snarky tweet saying they don’t care whether Rousey talks to the media. Under normal circumstances, leading up to a normal fight, I probably wouldn’t care that much, either. UFC press conferences may typically be a bit more interesting than your average mainstream sports press conference, but they’re still not that interesting.
The same can be said for the cookie-cutter 10-minute pre-fight interviews the UFC usually offers to media during fight week. In both settings, it’s hard to make anything real or illuminating happen. Fighters are on autopilot, regurgitating prepared answers to stock questions, and nobody has the time or inclination to break out of the mold. It’s all just part of how the sausage gets made at this point.
But with this particular woman leading up to this particular fight, we are in fact missing out.
One of the primary storylines headed into UFC 207 is Rousey’s mental state. Arguably the most important factor leading into her clash with Nunes will be how she’s been able to rebound from the loss to Holm both physically and psychologically.
Now we won’t have any way to know before fight night. Perhaps that’s by design, but speaking as a fight fan, I do find it slightly disappointing.
We can read it one of two ways, of course. On one hand, it’s a good sign that Rousey is eschewing doing media in order to buckle down and prepare for her comeback fight. On the other hand, perhaps it’s a sign of impending disaster that she doesn’t even have what it takes to sit through a few softball Q&A sessions before stepping back in the Octagon.
Naturally, how we’ll view it in retrospect depends on whether she wins or loses.
If she wins, it’ll be the former. If she loses, the latter.
You know who really should care that Rousey is ditching on her press obligations, though? Nunes. Especially if she stands to get a cut of the pay-per-view money, the event’s biggest drawing card excusing herself from actually trying to sell the thing would be troubling.
What do you think, Mike. Does Nunes stand to get the short end of the stick if UFC 207 is allowed to fly beneath the radar?
Mike: Nunes has a right to feel slighted by the whole set of circumstances. Even though the UFC gave her “equal” treatment in the sense that she is also excused from doing the typical fight-week media, Nunes can use the press to grow her own brand and to draw further interest in herself.
If she wins Saturday, she will gain some new fans and grow awareness of her talents, but not as much as if she was involved with a push heading into the bout.
Furthermore, since most of the questions about Rousey are based on her psychological state, Nunes is being robbed of opportunities at starting the psychological warfare during in-person meetings.
While she’s not exactly a trash-talker, Nunes won’t even have the option of doing it this time around, and that’s unfair. It comes off as the UFC standing in Rousey’s corner, protecting her.
Which brings us to another, related matter: Rousey’s representation.
The former UFC bantamweight women’s champion is represented by WME-IMG. It has a vested interest in protecting her career in both MMA and beyond. It is not difficult to assume that Rousey talked to her agent, who ran it up the flagpole to the WME-IMG bosses, who signed off on what she wanted. Of course, that’s probably what happened. Agents are not in the business of saying “no” to their clients if they can help it—especially ones who generate significant income for the group.
It’s a serious conflict of interest, and it’s unfair to the rest of the roster. It’s unfair to the fans who may want to hear more about Rousey’s mindset. But most of all, it’s unfair to Nunes. Even with Rousey’s absence, all of the collateral marketing has been based on Rousey. All of the supporting television programming this week is, too.
She’s absent yet everywhere, but these fight replays and commercials don’t have the same impact as live words.
The consequences of any fan reaction will be interesting to watch as they unfold. Will this kind of thing ultimately harm the Rousey brand? Will it harm the UFC?
Chad: Honestly, I doubt it. Excusing Rousey from media obligations only plays inside the MMA bubble. Casual fans may not even notice, and if they do, Rousey showing up to do one two-minute satellite interview on SportsCenter or Good Morning America probably makes it all go away.
However, I do wonder how all this might decrease the overall profile of UFC 207. Already scheduled for an unorthodox Friday night broadcast in order to make room for Saturday’s New Year’s Eve, this event could use all the public awareness it can get. Now I wonder how the mainstream media will cover it, with no press conference quips or potential staredown antics to use as highlights on their newscasts.
Again, if I were Nunes, I’d be worried about that. She’s had an unbelievable 2016, first claiming the title with a win over Miesha Tate in the main event of UFC 200 and then landing Rousey’s comeback fight. This ought to be the crowning achievement of her career, and yet it feels like it might fly beneath the radar. If she’s getting a cut of the PPV money, then Rousey’s decision to blow off her press engagements could theoretically cost Nunes a heap of cash.
In the bigger picture, the point you raise about WME-IMG is a potentially troubling one. Especially considering the kerfuffle that broke out between McGregor and the UFC over the UFC 200 press conference, this does smack of new owners giving preferential treatment to their client.
Were I a UFC fighter represented by a competing firm, I’d feel uneasy about the whole thing. Remember, promoters also managing their fighters is against the law in boxing, but MMA enjoys no such federal protections.
How WME-IMG straddles that line figures to be a major storyline moving forward—one that could persist long after Rousey’s strange career has come and gone.
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