Filed under: StrikeforceStrikeforce 135-pound women’s champ Miesha Tate doesn’t think it’s fair for Ronda Rousey to leverage her looks into a title shot, and she’s got a point.
Rousey thinks that, when it comes to selling a fight and getting MMA fans …
Strikeforce 135-pound women’s champ Miesha Tate doesn’t think it’s fair for Ronda Rousey to leverage her looks into a title shot, and she’s got a point.
Rousey thinks that, when it comes to selling a fight and getting MMA fans interested in what’s happening with the women’s division, fair doesn’t enter into it. She’s also got a point.
It’s an argument that — especially among female MMA fighters — isn’t new and isn’t unique. The fact is, when you’re trying to scratch out a living in the women’s division of a sport marketed primarily to young men, it helps to be pretty. It might not be fair, and it might not be right, but we need only look at who’s getting paid and who’s getting ignored to know that, at least for now, it’s the way things are.
But watching Tate and Rousey present their respective sides of the issue while my colleague Ariel Helwani struggled to get a word in, I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s always going to be this way, and whether we’ll ever stop arguing over it. And if we don’t, is that necessarily such a bad thing?
To be fair, this particular iteration of the argument isn’t as simple as beauty versus the beast. You might look at Rousey and see Judo Barbie, but there’s more to her than just eye candy. For starters, she’s an Olympic bronze medalist. If you want to hear about that, just ask her. If you don’t want to hear about it, fine, but she’ll probably tell you anyway, and who can blame her?
Sure, she’s only had four pro fights in MMA, but none of them have been even the least bit competitive. You could call her career one long armbar clinic, except that a) it hasn’t even been that long, and b) any clinic that injures that many people isn’t going to get a whole lot of repeat customers.
Still, Rousey knows what she’s doing. She’s attractive, she’s got an attitude, and she’s using both to get herself noticed. When Tate told her, “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say,” she’s probably right. But then, is that so wrong?
If Tate thinks so, she must have come around to that conclusion pretty recently. Seems like she’s had no problem playing up her own good looks when it served her purposes (exhibit A: the background of her Twitter page). Then again, as Tate pointed out, she also won a bunch of fights. Being good-looking is, as she tells it, “just a bonus” for a female fighter, since at the end of the day each woman still has to acquit herself in the cage, where a pretty face won’t help you.
But then, the problem for women’s MMA hasn’t been a lack of skill from the fighters — it’s a lack of interest from the fans. For whatever reason, a lot of the same people who love to see two men beat each other up just aren’t into watching two women do the same thing. I don’t know why that is, honestly, and I’m not sure it matters. You can tell people that they should like and support women’s MMA. You can tell them they’re a bunch of jerks if they only want to see pretty girls fighting. That might make a few people feel bad about themselves, but it won’t create many new fans.
You know what will, though? Stuff like this Tate-Rousey rivalry. Already it’s produced what might be the best segment in MMA Hour history (no offense to “The Mitrione Minute”). For the first time in a long time, the MMA world is buzzing about women’s MMA. And, contrary to how it might seem on the surface, it’s not their looks that’s driving the interest (though, okay, it doesn’t hurt). Really, it’s the argument over their looks and over how much it matters, and it’s the same argument women’s MMA has been having with itself for years.
It shouldn’t be enough to be pretty. I don’t just mean in MMA, either. Whether you’re a man or a woman, good looks might be a minor win in the genetic lottery, but they don’t make you a good or talented or even worthwhile person. We know this, even if we don’t always act like it. To give a good-looking person special considerations just because we like looking at their face is embarrassingly dumb, not to mention unfair. That’s why it makes for such a fascinating internal conflict for a women’s division that’s still struggling with its own identity.
No one wants to see women’s MMA become a sideshow where untalented, untrained pretty girls fight it out in sports bras for the sexual satisfaction of a caveman crowd. At least, I hope no one wants that, and if they do there are websites specifically for them (I’ve heard there are, anyway). At the same time, just as in the men’s division, promote-ability matters. Brock Lesnar got a title shot after three fights — which, in retrospect, still seems insane — because he sold tickets and pay-per-views.
Some fans and fighters might want to see MMA become an egalitarian utopia where none of that matters, but in the meantime promoters still have to market their product to the world that is rather than the world that could or should be.
The good news is, MMA has a built-in lie detector to keep anyone from skating by on looks or attitude or popularity for too long, and that’s the same for the women as it is for the men. If you can’t fight, we’ll find out soon enough. Eventually some ugly, boring person will punch you in the face until you can’t stand up, and that will be that. Facial symmetry might be a useful gift, but it doesn’t hold up too well in a sport that allows elbow strikes on the ground.
By forcing this discussion, both Tate and Rousey have done women’s MMA a favor, whether either of them realize it or not. As much as female fighters love to frame their sport as a battle for attention and respect that they’re all waging together, they don’t always act in their own self-interest. It doesn’t help them at all to be nice or to be friends or even to be fair to one another. What helps them is selling fights. What helps them — just as it helps the men — is getting fans interested in what’s about to happen a few Saturday nights from now.
That’s the business of fighting. As Josh Barnett likes to say, the business of fighting has very little to do with actual fighting, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. This conflict — trying to give fans what they want but without losing your identity or self-respect in the process — might turn out to be an ongoing and inescapable struggle for women’s MMA. And maybe that’s okay. In a sport that’s all about conflict in its various forms, you could do a lot worse than have public arguments that lead to publicized fights.
Just four fights into her professional fight career, Strikeforce‘s Ronda Rousey insists that she is ready to face reigning women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, and that the fight should be signed imminently. Tate, however, says that the young upstart is not quite ready for the increase in opponent caliber, and that she should wait her turn.
The debate between the two stems from the fact that Strikeforce has yet to announce its intended direction for the division’s future. For her part, Tate hopes to bypass Rousey’s challenge in order to face Sarah Kaufman in a rematch of their May 2009 fight.
In a charged, joint interview on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the two debated their opposing viewpoints on the 135-pound weight class. While Rousey believes that a title fight with Tate would be the most marketable women’s fight available, Tate is skeptical about Rousey’s experience level and thinks it would be unfair to see her leapfrog more seasoned fighters simply because she asked the loudest for a title shot.
Tate opened up the proceedings with the first shot.
“What happens when she gets a failed arm bar and someone ends up on top pounding her face in?” she said. “Is she going to tap out or quit? We don’t know. We haven’t seen that yet. I think it’s kind of silly to put her in with me because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take it to her. A lot of people are underestimating me. That’s fine. That always seems to be the case. Make no mistake, if Ronda is my next fight, I’m going to come in with a vengeance you’ve never seen before, because to be quite honest, it’s probably going to piss me off.”
Tate said that she believes either Kaufman or Alexis Davis is more deserving than Rousey by virtue of their respective experience levels and longer histories of success. Kaufman — a former divisional champ — is 14-1 while Davis is 11-4. Rousey, meanwhile, is 4-0 after turning pro less than nine months ago.
Despite her relative neophyte status in MMA, Rousey’s early performances have been so dominant — each win has come in less than one minute, and finished in arm bar submissions — the thought of Rousey-Tate has grown steam as Rousey has continued her campaign for the slot.
Rousey responded by noting that Strikeforce does not use a ranking system and simply looks for the fights that will make them the most money. In her mind, Rousey-Tate is the money fight.
“I really feel 100 percent that a fight between her and me needs to happen,” Rousey said. “It’ll be great for women’s MMA. It’ll be the first highly anticipated fight in women’s MMA for a long time … We need to capitalize on the opportunity while we still have it. I don’t want to risk her losing the title and us not being able to fight each other for the title.”
Tate said that Rousey’s approach to it has been insulting to the other fighters in the mix, but Rousey justified her tactics, noting the attention it’s gotten them in recent weeks.
“I think it’s working because she’s pretty,” Tate said. “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say. That’s why you’re getting this attention. I don’t know, I guess I personally like more of a humble approach. You can say you want to be the Chael Sonnen of women’s MMA, and Chael gets a lot of press and everything like that, too, but no one likes him.”
“Yeah, but he makes a lot of money and he gets a lot of title shots, too, doesn’t he?” Rousey responded, pointing out how much Sonnen’s profile has grown since changing his promotional approach.
After Tate pointed out that Rousey hasn’t even yet competed at 135 pounds a single time, and should have to do so before fighting for the belt, Rousey made a different comparison, one to former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, who captured his title in his third fight in the octagon. That led to an interesting exchange between the two about a possible matchup.
“What happens if I go out there and I just cream you?” Tate asked. “Then all your hype is just over. Then Ronda was just another pretty face.”
“That’s a risk I’m wiling to take, and you should be willing to take some risks, too,” Rousey said.
“I’m willing,” Tate said.
“The longer you wait, the more of an advantage I’ll have,” Rousey said, predicting that she’ll be improving at a faster rate than Tate in the future.
Moments later, Tate shot back, saying, “I feel like you’re being really selfish and only thinking about yourself.”
“If you want to be an idealist, go to the Olympics,” said Rousey, herself a former judo Olympic bronze medalist. “Go do wrestling in the Olympics. There is no ranking system in the UFC or Zuffa. It’s completely up to powers that be, and I think that us debating about it is kind of a moot point, because they’re the ones who make the decision when it comes down to it, and they don’t care about any rankings. They only are about what’s going to sell tickets. You want to be an idealist? Go to the Olympics. I did that. I didn’t make anything.”
Of course, there is at least one other side to this story, and it’s Kaufman’s. The former champion wasn’t a part of the debate between the two although she did give her take later on. While Tate said that a rematch between her and Kaufman could sell based on the revenge angle, Rousey doubted it would be a big hit with audiences, saying it probably wouldn’t gain much more interest than their first go-around.
“Sarah Kaufman kind of gives boring interviews, she’s not a supermodel and the way she fights, she doesn’t finish matches in extraordinary fashion,” she said. “It’s just kind of being realistic. I’m sorry that I have to say things bluntly and offend some people. I just want there to be a highly marketable, exciting women’s title fight, and I want to be part of that because I feel like I could do a really good job, and you could, too. I think the two of us could do a better job of that than you and Sarah Kaufman.”
The two ultimately agreed on little except that in the end, they would abide by the decision of the Strikeforce matchmaker Sean Shelby. That, and the fact that they hope to increase the number of eyeballs on women’s MMA, though they disagreed on the method to do so.
As for Kaufman, she is expecting the fight she was promised against Tate, and has no qualms about dealing with Rousey at a future date.
“It would be way smarter for the longevity of the division to work her way up,” she said. “If she runs through people — which I don’t think she will — then I’ll be happy to beat her face in. She wants to be pretty? She won’t be as pretty after our fight.”
Just four fights into her professional fight career, Strikeforce‘s Ronda Rousey insists that she is ready to face reigning women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, and that the fight should be signed imminently. Tate, however, says that the young upstart is not quite ready for the increase in opponent caliber, and that she should wait her turn.
The debate between the two stems from the fact that Strikeforce has yet to announce its intended direction for the division’s future. For her part, Tate hopes to bypass Rousey’s challenge in order to face Sarah Kaufman in a rematch of their May 2009 fight.
In a charged, joint interview on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the two debated their opposing viewpoints on the 135-pound weight class. While Rousey believes that a title fight with Tate would be the most marketable women’s fight available, Tate is skeptical about Rousey’s experience level and thinks it would be unfair to see her leapfrog more seasoned fighters simply because she asked the loudest for a title shot.
Tate opened up the proceedings with the first shot.
“What happens when she gets a failed arm bar and someone ends up on top pounding her face in?” she said. “Is she going to tap out or quit? We don’t know. We haven’t seen that yet. I think it’s kind of silly to put her in with me because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take it to her. A lot of people are underestimating me. That’s fine. That always seems to be the case. Make no mistake, if Ronda is my next fight, I’m going to come in with a vengeance you’ve never seen before, because to be quite honest, it’s probably going to piss me off.”
Tate said that she believes either Kaufman or Alexis Davis is more deserving than Rousey by virtue of their respective experience levels and longer histories of success. Kaufman — a former divisional champ — is 14-1 while Davis is 11-4. Rousey, meanwhile, is 4-0 after turning pro less than nine months ago.
Despite her relative neophyte status in MMA, Rousey’s early performances have been so dominant — each win has come in less than one minute, and finished in arm bar submissions — the thought of Rousey-Tate has grown steam as Rousey has continued her campaign for the slot.
Rousey responded by noting that Strikeforce does not use a ranking system and simply looks for the fights that will make them the most money. In her mind, Rousey-Tate is the money fight.
“I really feel 100 percent that a fight between her and me needs to happen,” Rousey said. “It’ll be great for women’s MMA. It’ll be the first highly anticipated fight in women’s MMA for a long time … We need to capitalize on the opportunity while we still have it. I don’t want to risk her losing the title and us not being able to fight each other for the title.”
Tate said that Rousey’s approach to it has been insulting to the other fighters in the mix, but Rousey justified her tactics, noting the attention it’s gotten them in recent weeks.
“I think it’s working because she’s pretty,” Tate said. “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say. That’s why you’re getting this attention. I don’t know, I guess I personally like more of a humble approach. You can say you want to be the Chael Sonnen of women’s MMA, and Chael gets a lot of press and everything like that, too, but no one likes him.”
“Yeah, but he makes a lot of money and he gets a lot of title shots, too, doesn’t he?” Rousey responded, pointing out how much Sonnen’s profile has grown since changing his promotional approach.
After Tate pointed out that Rousey hasn’t even yet competed at 135 pounds a single time, and should have to do so before fighting for the belt, Rousey made a different comparison, one to former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, who captured his title in his third fight in the octagon. That led to an interesting exchange between the two about a possible matchup.
“What happens if I go out there and I just cream you?” Tate asked. “Then all your hype is just over. Then Ronda was just another pretty face.”
“That’s a risk I’m wiling to take, and you should be willing to take some risks, too,” Rousey said.
“I’m willing,” Tate said.
“The longer you wait, the more of an advantage I’ll have,” Rousey said, predicting that she’ll be improving at a faster rate than Tate in the future.
Moments later, Tate shot back, saying, “I feel like you’re being really selfish and only thinking about yourself.”
“If you want to be an idealist, go to the Olympics,” said Rousey, herself a former judo Olympic bronze medalist. “Go do wrestling in the Olympics. There is no ranking system in the UFC or Zuffa. It’s completely up to powers that be, and I think that us debating about it is kind of a moot point, because they’re the ones who make the decision when it comes down to it, and they don’t care about any rankings. They only are about what’s going to sell tickets. You want to be an idealist? Go to the Olympics. I did that. I didn’t make anything.”
Of course, there is at least one other side to this story, and it’s Kaufman’s. The former champion wasn’t a part of the debate between the two although she did give her take later on. While Tate said that a rematch between her and Kaufman could sell based on the revenge angle, Rousey doubted it would be a big hit with audiences, saying it probably wouldn’t gain much more interest than their first go-around.
“Sarah Kaufman kind of gives boring interviews, she’s not a supermodel and the way she fights, she doesn’t finish matches in extraordinary fashion,” she said. “It’s just kind of being realistic. I’m sorry that I have to say things bluntly and offend some people. I just want there to be a highly marketable, exciting women’s title fight, and I want to be part of that because I feel like I could do a really good job, and you could, too. I think the two of us could do a better job of that than you and Sarah Kaufman.”
The two ultimately agreed on little except that in the end, they would abide by the decision of the Strikeforce matchmaker Sean Shelby. That, and the fact that they hope to increase the number of eyeballs on women’s MMA, though they disagreed on the method to do so.
As for Kaufman, she is expecting the fight she was promised against Tate, and has no qualms about dealing with Rousey at a future date.
“It would be way smarter for the longevity of the division to work her way up,” she said. “If she runs through people — which I don’t think she will — then I’ll be happy to beat her face in. She wants to be pretty? She won’t be as pretty after our fight.”
The MMA Hour is back in your life on Monday with another two-hour live episode. Below is the show lineup:
* We’ll be joined by Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate and top contender Ronda Rousey at the same time to discuss Rousey’s climb up the 135-pound ladder and a potential title fight between the two.
* Later, contender Sarah Kaufman will weigh-in on the Strikeforce title situation.
* Featherweight Mark Hominick will discuss his UFC 140 fight against Chan Sung Jung.
* Friend of the show Matt Mitrione will stop by for another edition of “The Mitrione Minute.”
* And we’ll go “5 Rounds” on the news making headlines in MMA with reigning champion Ben Fowlkes and ESPN.com’s Chad Dundas.
Of course, we’ll also be taking your calls as we look aheard to Saturday night’s TUF 14 Finale, so give us a shout at: 212-254-0193, 212-254-0237 or 212-254-0714.
*** You can also stream the show live on your iPhone or iPad by clicking here.
Subscribe to The MMA Hour on iTunes: audio feed here; video feed here. Download previous episodes here. Listen to the show via Stitcher here.
The MMA Hour is back in your life on Monday with another two-hour live episode. Below is the show lineup:
* We’ll be joined by Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate and top contender Ronda Rousey at the same time to discuss Rousey’s climb up the 135-pound ladder and a potential title fight between the two.
* Later, contender Sarah Kaufman will weigh-in on the Strikeforce title situation.
* Featherweight Mark Hominick will discuss his UFC 140 fight against Chan Sung Jung.
* Friend of the show Matt Mitrione will stop by for another edition of “The Mitrione Minute.”
* And we’ll go “5 Rounds” on the news making headlines in MMA with reigning champion Ben Fowlkes and ESPN.com’s Chad Dundas.
Of course, we’ll also be taking your calls as we look aheard to Saturday night’s TUF 14 Finale, so give us a shout at: 212-254-0193, 212-254-0237 or 212-254-0714.
*** You can also stream the show live on your iPhone or iPad by clicking here.
Subscribe to The MMA Hour on iTunes: audio feed here; video feed here. Download previous episodes here. Listen to the show via Stitcher here.
Ronda Rousey is the next big thing in women’s mixed martial arts.
The undefeated Rousey, who beat Julia Budd on the Nov. 18 Strikeforce Challengers card, has been running through her competition like few fighters, male or female, we’ve ever seen: Rousey is 4-0, and incredibly all four of her wins have come in less than a minute, all by armbar. Before turning pro she had three amateur fights, and she won all three of those by armbar in less than a minute, too.
And so, although she’s still new to the sport and still hasn’t been tested against the best women Strikeforce has to offer, Rousey makes my Top 5 as we rank the top pound-for-pound fighters in women’s MMA. She looks that good.
What we don’t know yet is whether Rousey is more than just a one-trick pony: If she faces an opponent who’s able to keep the fight standing, will she be able to hold her own exchanging punches? And although she’s not going to face anyone who’s on her level as a judo player, will she be able to execute more than just her go-to arm bar if she faces an opponent who’s sophisticated enough on the ground not to let Rousey get her arm?
It remains to be seen. But I think she’s a future champion, and I think she deserves her place on the list of the top women in the sport, which is below.
1. Cris Cyborg (1): After more than a year away, Cyborg returns to defend her women’s 145-pound title against Hiroko Yamanaka. That’s an interesting matchup; Yamanaka has a 12-1 record and will have a height and reach advantage over Cyborg. But Yamanaka has never fought outside Japan before, and Cyborg has been so dominant that at this point it’s very tough to see anyone beating her.
2. Zoila Gurgel (2): It’s unfortunate that after Gurgel’s huge win over Megumi Fujii, she’s only been able to fight once. She’s currently nursing a torn ACL and won’t be back any time soon. It would make sense for Bellator to arrange another women’s tournament for the right to take on Gurgel, although it’s not clear whether that’s in the promotion’s plans.
3. Miesha Tate (7): Tate turned in a great performance against Marloes Coenen to win the Strikeforce 135-pound women’s championship. What really worked for her in the Coenen fight was her superior wrestling, and it’s her wrestling that would make her a favorite to beat almost any female fighter in the world.
4. Megumi Fujii (3): In the year since suffering her one and only loss to Gurgel, Fujii has gone back to Japan and won a couple of unanimous decisions. I’d like to see her back in the Bellator cage in 2012, and a rematch with Gurgel would be the biggest women’s fight Bellator could make.
5. Ronda Rousey (NR): Rousey has been calling out Tate, and although the next shot at Tate’s 135-pound title was supposed to go to Sarah Kaufman, Zuffa may decide that Rousey is too hot to hold off on right now. Rousey is an easy sell for promoters because she’s smart and articulate and an Olympic bronze medalist in judo, and putting her in the cage with Tate would be one of the most marketable female fights that Strikeforce could arrange.
6. Marloes Coenen (4): First Coenen lost her Strikeforce title to Tate, then she lost her contract when her management at Golden Glory feuded with Zuffa. Now it’s anyone’s guess when or where she might fight next; she’s with an organization called BlackEye Promotions, which has no events scheduled.
7. Sarah Kaufman (5): Kaufman’s only loss was to Coenen, and since then she’s won two in a row, supposedly earning a title shot against Tate, whom Kaufman beat in 2009. The question is whether Strikeforce will push Kaufman aside to put Rousey in the cage with Tate.
8. Jessica Aguilar (8): Aguilar looked great in her unanimous decision win over Lisa Ellis-Ward at Bellator 58. Aguilar has now won seven of her last eight fights, with the only loss coming by split decision to Gurgel.
9. Tara LaRosa (6): LaRosa has been inactive since her great heel-hook submission of Carina Damm in March, and as a result a couple of more active fighters have leapfrogged her in the rankings. LaRosa is one of the real pioneers for women’s MMA. Let’s hope she’s back in the cage soon.
10. Alexis Davis (NR): Davis has had a couple big wins since we last updated our women’s rankings, beating Julie Kedzie by unanimous decision in July and then beating Amanda Nunes by TKO in September. I hope Zuffa keeps Strikeforce’s 135-pound women’s division alive, because Davis could be a great opponent for Tate, Kaufman or Rousey.
For the record, our new obsession with Ronda Rousey is completely healthy, and is based mostly on our deep respect for the art of judo. Also, she’s really hot. Just figured we’d throw that out there.
The point is, you might be seeing a lot more of Ms. Rousey, in high-profile fights that would push her skills to their limits. In the meantime, check out our favorite Ronda Rousey photos in the gallery below. Enjoy, and show Ronda you care on twitter @RondaRousey.
For the record, our new obsession with Ronda Rousey is completely healthy, and is based mostly on our deep respect for the art of judo. Also, she’s really hot. Just figured we’d throw that out there.
The point is, you might be seeing a lot more of Ms. Rousey, in high-profile fights that would push her skills to their limits. In the meantime, check out our favorite Ronda Rousey photos in the gallery above. Enjoy, and show Ronda you care on twitter @RondaRousey.
Strikeforce 135-pound women’s champ 
Just four fights into her professional fight career, 
