Rousey featured in ‘The New Yorker’; how she became a ‘mean girl’
This week ‘The New Yorker’, one of the country’s most esteemed publications featured Ronda Rousey in a full length story. Here is a short snippet of the excellent article.
UFC women’s champion Ronda Rousey continues to break boundaries, not only for women’s MMA, but MMA general. This week ‘The New Yorker’, one of the country’s most esteemed publications featured Rousey in a full length story. Here is a snippet:
The Ultimate Fighter proved to be a defining moment for Rousey, although not the way she or the U.F.C. might have imagined. The bad feelings began in the first episode, when the opposing coach suffered an injury and producers decided not to tell Rousey; instead, they lured her to the gym, where the new coach—Tate—was waiting, with a cold smile. For a moment, Rousey thought that Tate was replacing her, and even after she learned the truth she was angry about the setup. I was directly lied to for the sake of them getting some juicy footage, she says now. The show depicted Rousey in one extended sulk, finding new ways to clash with Tate and her team in every episode. Wrestling fans talk about the heel turn, the moment when a fan favorite is revealed to be a villain, and for Rousey The Ultimate Fighter functioned as her heel turn. Especially in the context of a rather inane reality show, her unstinting intensity made her seem slightly scary. When Rousey beat Tate in a rock-climbing contest, she celebrated by extending a middle finger and shouting, Fuck you, bitch! And when Baszler, one of her team’s top-ranked fighters, lost her first match, Rousey was inconsolable. I fucking failed today, she said, sobbing. Then, instantly, her mood changed and she accused Tate of taking pleasure in Baszler’s disappointment. She’s going to pay for every fucking smile she smirks today, Rousey said, scowling through tears. Can you blame those of us who paid our sixty dollars, two months later, to watch it happen?
When Rousey talks about her reputation, she often uses the language of professional wrestling, as if her heel turn were merely a ploy to drum up interest. If you’re cheering and the person next to you is booing, you’re going to cheer louder, she says. I love that. I love creating conflict within the audience. But at her most compelling she sounds less like a sly provocateur and more like a sensitive soul, deeply offended by those she feels have wronged her. During her judo days, crowds usually rooted against her, maybe just because she was an American, in a sport typically dominated by Asians and Europeans. I’ve been booed in over thirty countries, she says, and some part of her still seems surprised, and perhaps a little hurt, that stardom hasn’t eliminated this phenomenon.
Great fighters are supposed to be at once humble athletes, who fight for sport, and fearsome warriors, who fight for cause. Rousey excels at making each match feel like a grudge match, even if her only grudge is with the recalcitrant fans who still won’t cheer for her. A number of top U.F.C. stars have similarly complex relationships with their paying customers. Jon (Bones) Jones, a dazzling light heavyweight, may be the most talented and dominant male fighter in the sport, but some find him arrogant and petulant; CagePotato has branded him catty and compared him to a child. Even so, as Rousey built her public persona, she faced hurdles that her male counterparts surely didn’t. When she and Tate exchanged insults in 2012, each implied that the other didn’t belong in the cage, as if conscious of the discomfiting possibility that fans might not take either of them seriously. And although Georges St. Pierre, the former champion from Canada, has plenty of fans who view him as a heartthrob, his beauty isn’t typically discussed as an essential part of his career. There is now, thanks to Rousey, a space for women in the U.F.C., but it’s a narrow space; even the woman who created it doesn’t quite fit.
