White: Rousey is the biggest star in UFC history

UFC president Dana White recently appeared on Hot 97 and was asked if former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey remained the biggest star in league history.

“By far,” said White, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “Not even close, by far the biggest star ever.”

“Ronda Rousey is such a big star that when you go down to Brazil – I don’t know if you guys have watched any of the fights we do from Brazil — they don’t care who you are. They want the Brazilian to whoop your ass. When Ronda went down there, they cheered for Ronda over the Brazilian. Never seen that before in my life and will probably never see it again. That’s how big Ronda Rousey is.”

“The truth with Ronda is this: Ronda Rousey worked her ass off for four years. She worked hard. All the time she fought, all the PR that she did for us, and more importantly the training. The training takes a lot out of you. And after the loss she said, ‘I need a break. I need time off.’ And the minute anybody says that in this business…you don’t do that in this sport. Your head has to be in this game 24-7 and you’ve got to be a killer. The minute you think you need a break, you definitely need a break.”

When Rousey’s break ends is up in the air, but she is reportedly back in training, and could fight towards the end of this year. White has said that her return will see the biggest PPV sales in league history.

That said, McGregor is the biggest PPV star in the UFC, ever, as you can see at a glance, in MMA Manifesto’s PPV buy estimates:
#1 UFC 202 Aug 20/16 Nate Diaz vs Conor McGregor 1,650,000
#2 UFC 100 Jul 11/09 Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir 1,600,000
#3 UFC 196 Mar 5/16 Conor McGregor vs Nate Diaz 1,500,000
#4 UFC 194 Dec 12/15 Jose Aldo vs Conor McGregor 1,200,000
#4 (tie) UFC 200 Jul 9/16 Miesha Tate vs Amanda Nunes 1,200,000
#6 UFC 116 Jul 3/10 Brock Lesnar vs Shane Carwin 1,160,000
#7 UFC 193 Nov 15/15 Ronda Rousey vs Holly Holm 1,100,000
#8 (tie) UFC 114 May 29/10 Rampage Jackson vs Rashad Evans 1,050,000
#8 (tie) UFC 121 Oct 23/10 Brock Lesnar vs Cain Velasquez 1,050,000
#8 (tie) UFC 66 Dec 30/06 Chuck Liddell vs Tito Ortiz 1,050,000

However, PPVs are not the sole measure of how big a fighter is. Rousey was named by ESPN as the best fighter, male or female, in all of combat sports. Her autobiography made the New York Times bestseller list. She appeared in multiple Hollywood movies. And in 2015, she was #3 for Google’s top trending people, ahead of Donald Trump.

That’s big, and bigger than Conor McGregor.