On November 15, for the first time in her career, Ronda Rousey’s head clattered to the canvas following Holly Holm’s upset knockout victory. The blood spattered Octagon (caged ring used in this largely no holds barred type of fighting) is an inordinate place for refined things to manifest themselves. And when they do, one must look beyond the razzmatazz of the UFC’s crude promotion style, and the vehement beatings MMA fighters give and receive. The semblance of unbridled violence unsettles many – but the impact Ronda Rousey has had, transcends by far that off her fists against her opponents. Her personnage is an amalgam. There is the feminist icon, whose bold yet sincere rough and tumble charm is empowering a generation of young girls. There is also the very human, hubristic, and cerebral fighter. In this way, the reverberations of Rousey’s loss are far reaching, and can birth questions about women in male dominated fields (to an extent the case here at Waterloo).
First, we can consider Ronda’s ascent, and place as a luminary. Any semblances to Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby are a fortuity, because for Ronda it was a true story. Los Angeles, 2010, Rousey is dreaming behind a bar-counter – having burned through the $10,000 she won as an Olympic judo champion two years earlier in Beijing. On the flickering TV set she watches UFC highlights, and thinks – in her words, “I’d kick ass at this.”
Next scene. Still in L.A. but one year later…Dana White, President of the UFC is asked if women will ever fight in his mixed martial arts promotion. He scoffs, “Never, haha! no!”
3 years later Rousey had swept out the newly created women’s bantamweight division, was twisting Jimmy Fallon’s arm on prime time, and had taken to the silver screen, with cameos in the expendables and Fast and Furious 7 (unlike her masculine colleagues, often relegated to B-series). In the ring, she transcended the expeditive ruthlessness of Mike Tyson, and the grandiloquent flair of Muhammad Ali. All this in the shell of a conspicuous young woman – halfway in character between a Californian surfer girl and Amazon Warrior Queen.
Her sense of comedy, and almost teenage penchant for defiance out of the ring were galvanized by her backing up every zinger in the Octagon. She frequently, and with a passion cut back at her critics. Famously, she opposed her athletic shoulders – taken to derision by some – to those of “do-nothing bitches, DNB’s”, who “have sex with millionaires”.
Her loss to Holly Holm was a stark reminder that fortune is blind and a cocksure attitude might not be the best way to proceed. Some openly attribute the loss to hubris, and Rousey’s tactless refusal to touch gloves before the fight. However, many male fighters expressed nothing but respect for Rousey after her loss. Conor MacGregor said, “This is the fight business, these things happen. Ronda will be back. True champions come back and congratulations to Holly, the new champion.”
Rousey’s tribulations offer nothing but hope at a place such as uWaterloo. A place where women are blazing the trail, and defying sexism – not in a conscious or virulent way – but through a passion, if not martial, academic.
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