Can someone explain the obsession w/Ronda Rousey

She's on this week's SI cover.

The coverline is: "World's Most Dominant athlete" - okay, hyperbole sells, I get it. But she hasn't fought since February, won't fight again till August, and she's not even the most dominant female athlete in the world right now.

Why the obsession? Anyone?

 

Because she's (relatively) attractive and can whip your ass.

 

She's cute.

 

Harbaugh was on my cover.

I get the interest in her. Leading up to her last fight, you would hear a lot of people talking about how awful it is that they're glorifying two women fighting. I used to be a pretty big boxing fan, but MMA can be a bit tough to stomach, but as a fan of judo and martial arts, the way she won her last fight was all kinds of awesome.

I don't think she's particularly hot, not that she's bad-looking, but I think she's awesome.

 

Great issue of SI. Between the Rousey article, the Harbaugh article and the Ewing article, this was one of the best issues in recent memory.

 

She's a badass and you don't see that much anymore.

 

She is Danica Patrick -- a relatively attractive woman in a field that doesn't draw many.

Rousey seems engaging in interviews, and is a badass, but like Ringer, I don't get the obsession.

 

By those standards, Muhammad Ali never would have warranted hyperbole or the SI cover, I guess.

She may be the one MMA fighter that people who don't follow MMA have heard of, so she has crossover appeal.

 

Because she's willing to do a lot of interviews and she's in Entourage, which is coming to a theater near you, so she's doing even more interviews. That's how it works.

The obsession, for example, with Kardashians is mostly tied to their willingness - well, the matriarch's willingness - to constantly, relentlessly be in the news. The minute you don't want to become content fodder for magazines, you kinda disappear.

 

Difference between Patrick and Rousey. Rousey actually wins in her sport.

 

The SI article said Rousey only made $130K for her last fight. That's not bad if you break it down dollars by seconds of the fight, but seems ridiculously low. I wonder how much more than that she'll be getting for her next fight.