Ronda Rousey defends her Strikeforce title by submitting Sarah Kaufman – Photo via Facebook.com/Strikeforce
With another quick victory this past Saturday night, women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey (6-0) has solidified herself as the face of both female mixed martial arts, Strikeforce and SHOWTIME.
Like Gina Carano she has caught the eye of the mma world with her natural charisma, but unlike the fighter turned actress, she possesses the outgoing personality that has made her the darling of the media.
And like former Strikeforce featherweight champ Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos, mixed martial arts fans are drawn to Rousey’s killer instinct of finishing opponents, but unlike her Brazilian counterpart Rousey’s beauty and physical authenticity make her a fighter everyone can respect.
With fans questioning the abilities of champions Gilbert Melendez and Luke Rockhold as untested versus real competition (meaning not fighting anyone in the UFC), Strikeforce and SHOWTIME have made Rousey their star personality. It will be an interesting journey to see just how far this ride takes all of them.
On Saturday night Rousey faced a tough opponent in Canadian fighter Sarah Kaufman, known for her ability to tackle tough opponents and one who had six-weeks to prepare for an opponent with one predictable trick, but what a trick it is.
Predictably, Rousey finished Kaufman with an armbar in the first round needing just 54-seconds to submit her opponent. The win put the champ in the drivers seat of women’s mma and is certain to garner her even more attention from fans and media.
I wonder though, how long everyone will line up to see a “one-trick-pony” perform her one trick again-and-again.
Dating myself a little bit, like the Simpsons episode (Season five, episode twelve) which saw Bart appear on an episode of the Krusty the Clown show where he became on overnight celebrity with just one line, “I didn’t do it,” it’s hard not to see some sort of similarity between the two situations. The cartoon audiences clamored to hear the one line but soon became tired of the catch-phrase, is it hard to imagine that audiences will become tired of Rousey’s “one-trick?”
We’ve seen how fans and the media have turned on many UFC champions such Georges St-Pierre, not finishing fights, Anderson Silva, for picking opponents, and Jon Jones, for well being Jon Jones.
I’m not saying fans will tire of Rousey anytime soon, or am implying that she needs to test her other abilities inside the cage as this is mixed martial arts and not a Judo competition, I’m just curious to see what the expiry date on her popularity is.