Ronda Rousey has seen no shortage of negative publicity following her second consecutive knockout loss in a MMA match.
The former UFC Bantamweight Champion suffered a brutal head-kick loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November, 2015, then took 13 months off before returning to the cage.
In the buildup to the fight, Ronda refused to do press, instead focusing on strength, conditioning, and strategy.
But at UFC 207 on Dec. 30, that all came crashing down in a 48-second match that consisted solely of Amanda Nunes punching her in the face 27 times before referee Herb Dean mercifully stopped the fight.
Amanda Nunes continues to kick Ronda Rousey when she’s down and calls her “overrated” https://t.co/m4fZPAF9um pic.twitter.com/BC8oP5IZ6Q
— Complex (@Complex) January 5, 2017
Now many, including her own mother, are calling for her to retire. Chael Sonnen recently took up the topic on his You’re Welcome podcast with actor and enthusiastic fight fan Michael Rappaport. The pair had some hard criticisms for Ronda Rousey, though Chael, a former UFC fighter currently signed to Bellator, insisted it was not meant to bury her.
“I do think there is a place for her in this sport,” Sonnen said, adding that it would not be as a knockout artist or a future world champion. “That has passed.” Sonnen then picked apart the accomplishments of Rousey insisting she was never as good as the media made her out to be.
She was largely the benefactor of “a forming division,” he said. But with the sport evolving so quickly, the talent pool had clearly caught up to Rousey, and she is no longer a top talent. Sonnen concluded that she was a “creation of the media” rather than a truly great fighter.
Rappaport went even further than Sonnen insisting that Ronda wasn’t a fighter at all. Proof of this, he said, was in not being able to defend herself against a punch as well as how she carried herself both in and out of the cage. Rappaport pointed to other champions, who had taken their lumps through either knockout or submission, yet showed up for post-fight press conferences and congratulated their opponents after tough losses.
Ronda Rousey has done none of those things in both of her losses.
Furthermore, Rappaport insisted, she could not take a punch, nor adjust her game after taking any level of punishment whatsoever.
“And she’s one of the greatest. Greatest of what? Getting punched in the face?” Rappaport said, adding that “you cannot be the greatest anything if you’ve only done it 12 times” (a reference to Rousey’s 12-0 start in the sport before running into Holm).
Before closing out the segment, Sonnen also had some discouraging news for Ronda Rousey when it came to the future of her career, commenting that “you’re not an actor” and there will be “a domino effect” now that the luster has worn off her invincibility — that it will carry over to the loss of Roadhouse and other potential movie deals.
For fans of Ronda Rousey believing the guys were too hard on her, Rappaport said that if Ronda was going to brag about breaking people’s arms, then she should be able to take the same level of criticism as a man.
NEWS: Ronda Rousey thanks fans, remains noncommittal over MMA future in statement https://t.co/SsyXqgSCDK pic.twitter.com/e3m6W1fU0t
— Vicio MMA (@VicioMMA) December 31, 2016
For her part, Rousey has kept a low profile in the aftermath of last Friday’s trouncing. She did release a statement thanking her fans, but it came a few days after she left the cage without giving a post-fight interview or showing up at the press conference afterward. Her handling of both losses has drawn criticism of her sportsmanship and called into question whether she was ever the role model many made her out to be.
But what do you think, readers? Are people being too critical of Ronda Rousey now that her invincibility has been exposed, or are comments of people like Sonnen and Rappaport fair? Also, is there still a place for Ronda Rousey in MMA? Sound off in the comments section below.
[Featured Image by UFC]
