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D. FOX: The Massive Shoulders of Ronda Rousey, Face of MMA
Sep 1, 2015 - 4:25:05 PM D. FOX: The Massive Shoulders of Ronda Rousey, Face of MMA

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UFC Champ Carries Unprecedented Load in UFC 193 Headliner

By: Dayne Fox, MMATorch Contributor

The UFC has by and large been at the forefront of MMA throughout its existence, with Pride Fighting Championships holding that title for a few years in the early-to-mid 2000s. Thus, the face of MMA has usually been associated with what is now the undisputed world leader in MMA.

Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock held that title when the sport first emerged on the scene. Then, as political pressures forced the sport underground, it was hard for new faces to grab hold of the general public. Because of that, Shamrock remained the face most people were familiar with in regards to the sport, as his exposure to the national media grew thanks to his tenure in the then-WWF. Zuffa purchased the UFC right as it was gaining more nationwide sanctioning, and made Tito Ortiz their poster boy. As Ortiz fell out of favor with the brass due to contract demands, among other things, Randy Couture briefly became the face of the company thanks to his victory over Ortiz, only to lose that status in a similar way to Chuck Liddell as the TUF-era boom began. Liddell represented the UFC well for a few years before his chin eroded and he was no longer the king of the mountain. Brock Lesnar crossed over from wrestling to carry the bulk of the load, along with humble French Canadian star Georges St-Pierre. As Lesnar's health eroded, forcing him out of the sport, Anderson Silva's skills finally captured the public's attention, only for him and GSP step away from the top of heap, leaving the UFC without a face once again.

Who was going to emerge? Jon Jones was talented enough, but his arrogance and tumultuous life outside the confines of the cage have derailed that for the time being. What company wants to push a noted drug user and hit-and-run perpetrator? Jose Aldo didn't speak enough English to capture the North American audience, and he didn't care to do so anyway despite also having incredible physical gifts; add in his inability to stay healthy, and it's been hard for many to buy in on him completely. Chris Weidman dethroned Silva, but similar to Aldo, can't stay healthy enough to carry the load.

It took a little longer than expected for many fans, but Ronda Rousey not only came out and picked up the load by herself, but could very well end up taking the sport to new levels. The UFC is providing her with every opportunity to do so… with very little help.

Headlining UFC 190 - against an opponent who had no business headlining a Fight Night card much less a pay-per-view, -with a co-main event featuring two fighters whose prime was about a decade ago, Rousey was able to pull in north of 900,000 pay-per-view buys. Rousey was able to do this without all the hoopla surrounding the previous pay-per-view effort at UFC 189, which featured a world tour months in advance to support the event, two title fights, and what is likely the UFC's biggest star aside from Rousey in Conor McGregor. What did it pull in? 825,000 buys.

Have other UFC cards done better than UFC 190 in pay-per-view sales? Yes, but those cards have typically been stacked. The last card to top 1,000,000 buys? UFC 168, which featured the rematch between Weidman and Silva... and a co-headlining fight with Rousey in a rematch of her own against Miesha Tate. The first card to break a million? UFC 66, featuring two of the biggest stars in the UFC's history in Ortiz and Liddell rematching for the Light Heavyweight Title, a feud which had years of buildup and history.

And the highest selling card? UFC 100, with 1,600,000 buys featuring Lesnar looking to avenge his only loss at the time to Frank Mir, co-headlined by GSP defending against a Thiago Alves who was in top form, and the culmination of TUF 9 as Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping had partaken in a high profile feud, with the winner set up at the time to get the next Middleweight Title fight. On top of that, the UFC heavily pushed the event as a milestone, despite the fact it wasn't really the one hundredth event or even pay-per-view. Still, I won't rip on the celebration of the event as it was noteworthy.

Rousey is once again being asked to carry a heavy loadm as her next title fight has been moved up from January to November due to an injury to Welterweight Champion Robbie Lawler. Asking any fighter to move their fight up two months is a huge obstacle for them to overcome, and it can be even more significant for a title fight. Being asked to take that fight in Australia adds to the load. Dana White has already come out and stated he expects the show to break the live attendance record at an MMA event, making this one of the heaviest loads a single fighter has ever had to carry, if not the heaviest. And how many pay-per-view sales are they expecting? It hasn't been stated outright, but I would believe the UFC is expecting at least 1,000,000.

Let's look at why this load is so heavy. Who is Rousey fighting? Holly Holm, a very highly decorated women's boxer, some might even say the most decorated. While that sounds impressive, fight fans haven't taken to women's boxing the same way that they have women's MMA, so they don't really care about her boxing credentials. Athletic credentials in general don't seem to mean much to fans anyway. How often is it mentioned that Rousey was a bronze medalist in judo in the 2008 Olympics? The only time I remember the UFC hyping that is when she was facing 2004 Olympic wrestling silver medalist Sara McMann, pitting two Olympic medalists against each other for the first time. The pay-per-view was Rousey's lowest selling event to date.

So Holm's boxing credentials don't seem to matter to the casual observer. What about her MMA credentials? She has two fights in the UFC, the first of which she took in a close split decision, and while the second was a much clearer decision, it wasn't dominating, and came against an opponent nowhere near the title picture. Perhaps the UFC will point out she is undefeated. So was Bethe Correia… who lasted 34 seconds. It isn't how many wins you have, it's who you fought, and Holm hasn't fought anyone noteworthy.

What about Holm's ability to sell a fight? Holm doesn't talk trash. Correia's ability to do that much certainly helped UFC 190 sell itself to the fans, but Holm isn't going to do that. This isn't a rip on her character, as Holm hasn't done anything to make anyone think she is anything other than am awesome human being. But fans want entertaining human beings. Why else would people tune into Mike Tyson after his imprisonment, threatening to cannibalize Lennox Lewis's children, and biting into Evander Holyfield's ear? Based on that, Holm might be a bigger drag on the sales than Correia.

What about the undercard? The co-main event features Bigfoot Silva re-matching New Zealander and Australian favorite Mark Hunt. Their first fight in December of 2013 was truly one of the best fights seen in the sport's history ending in a draw… but does the casual fan know or care? Probably not. Their recent history isn't doing anything to help them out either.

Ever since the TRT ban, Silva he hasn't been the same; though he's probably the one fighter who truly deserves a TRT exemption due to his acromegaly, his post-TRT performances brought it to the point that many fans were hoping he would retire. Also, while he has since rebounded from a pair of brutal losses with a win, beating Soa Palelei is a far cry from what he once was. How many wins does he have in his last five fights? One.

Hunt's status in Australia will help with stadium sales, but it won't do anything to help attract pay-per-view buys. Though Hunt was seen as a viable contender just last year (he did in fact fight for the Interim Heavyweight Title last November), he endured one of the most brutal beatings seen in an MMA fight just this past May in a loss to Stipe Miocic. At 41, one has to wonder if Hunt is on the downside of his career. How many wins does he have in his last five fights? One.

Both have headlined pay-per-views as well, but neither produced inspiring numbers. Bigfoot headlined UFC 160 with Cain Velasquez, which ended up selling about 380,000. Not horrible, but certainly not great. As for Hunt, his fight against Fabricio Werdum at UFC 180 sold about 185,000 buys. Good numbers a decade ago, horrible for today.

Is there anyone else on the undercard who might help? Michael Bisping is the biggest name left. It's the same Bisping from UFC 100, but he doesn't sell pay-per-views anymore. His last appearance on a pay-per-view card was UFC 186… which sold in the neighborhood of 125,000 buys. Yikes. The rest of the card is full of Australians, as the UFC was hoping to use the countrymen to sell to the locals, and hope that the live gate sales would be respectable.

I would venture to guess the UFC was hoping the pay-per-view sales would be in the neighborhood of 400,000 based on the strength of Lawler and his opponent Carlos Condit having a balls-to-the-wall type performance that fans have come to expect out of them. That would have been optimistic, seeing as how Lawler's last pay-per-view headliner was UFC 181 against Johny Hendricks, which was also about 400,000. What makes it optimistic is that UFC 181 was co-headlined by Anthony Pettis-Gilbert Melendez for the Lightweight Title after those two served as coaches for TUF 20. Lawler's reputation has grown thanks to his epic war with Rory MacDonald at UFC 189, but 400,000 would have been an impressive feat for him, as 325,000-350,000 would have been more realistic.

So what is the live gate record? UFC 129 in Toronto set the UFC attendance record with 55,724 at Rogers Centre; it's a lofty number for them to attempt to break considering the closest they've come since then is around 30,000 in Sweden for UFC on Fox 14. What did that UFC 129 card feature? GSP was fighting in his home country against Jake Shields for the Welterweight Title, supported by Jose Aldo defending the Featherweight Title against Canadian Mark Hominick, and the legendary Couture fighting his last fight against former Light Heavyweight Champion Lyoto Machida less than a year after Machida lost the belt.

That's the UFC's live gate record, but it's not the live gate record in all of MMA.

Dana White expects Rousey to pull more than 71,000 people into Etihad Stadium, a record previously set at Pride Shockwave in the midst of Pride's heyday at the Tokyo National Stadium. That event featured all five of Pride's biggest stars at the time in Wanderlei Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Bob Sapp (before he became a joke, he was seen as a real monster), Mirko Cro Cop, and Japanese hero Kazushi Sakuraba. That certainly wasn't a one man show, either.

The UFC is placing an extremely heavy load onto the face of their organization, and it's unprecedented. Every other time the UFC was looking to break some sort of a record, there was plenty of help in carrying a show to that next level. Rousey won't be a hometown favorite. She won't be facing a highly anticipated opponent, nor someone she has extensive history with. She won't have any other highly anticipated fights on the card. All she will have is herself. And from what I've seen out of her, I won't be one bit surprised to see her pull it off.

That's the type of thing that happens when an athlete takes their sport to new levels.