Ronda Rousey is a powerhouse. She has appeared in a wide-range of media stretching from the 31st installment of WWE’s premier event, Wrestlemania, to the nosebleed-inducing, reckless and all-too-perfect seventh installment of the Fast and Furious franchise. She has kicked ass in all of them.
Ronda Rousey doesn’t need to fight a man
Ronda Rousey’s accomplishments stand on their own. Stop asking for more.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
She’s also done this while essentially being the final boss of the UFC’s women’s bantamweight division. She last faced the previously undefeated Cat Zingano at UFC 182. The fight lasted 14 seconds. Ronda forced her to tap out with an armbar submission.
Rousey is at the peak of her powers and seems absolutely unstoppable at the moment. So of course that means it’s time to demean her achievements by comparing her to her male counterparts. It’s the crass and expected path that these stories of dominant female athletes always seem to take.
The whispers of how Rousey would fare against male fighters were already present before she mauled Zingano. Like any good fight promoter, UFC president Dana White kicked the cocoon, joking that he may have to force Rousey to fight men if she beat Zingano too easily. Rousey, as she always does, replied that she believes that she can beat anybody. What else was she gonna say?
“If we’re just talking about what in the realm of possibilities is possible about who I could beat, I could beat 100 percent of them. But you can’t tell me there’s a zero percent chance I can’t beat anyone on the planet, so I’m never going to say that.”
The possibility of this hypothetical fight spread. And with it came the proposed outcomes and insufferable loudmouths like UFC flyweight contender Ian McCall, who had this to say:
“A good man will not lose to Ronda Rousey. I could put a judo gi on, [she’s] an Olympian. You’re not throwing me. It’s not going to happen. I will throw you on your head. Pretty simple. And you weigh more than me. I can’t compartmentalize it. It doesn’t make sense to me. I know it’s all talk. They compare her to [former heavyweight boxer Mike] Tyson. She’s dangerous, she’s good. I get it, but it’s just silly.”
But Joe Rogan, a UFC analyst, dialed up the volume in an interview on the Dan LeBatard show right after the fight. His intention was noble, but the road to hell is usually paved with those. Rogan confidently huffed that Ronda Rousey could beat 50 percent of the male bantamweights in the UFC and promptly set fire to the hornet’s nest of male egotism.
McCall’s dismissive attitude and Rogan’s cheerleading certitude are just servants to the same devil -- an egregious belief that female athletes have to compete against men in order to validate their achievements. The existence of the question that asks if Ronda Rousey could beat a man, and the suggestion that she should actually fight one, is the problem. She doesn’t need or have to.
Ronda Rousey is a woman, so she fights women. That is it. The only questions that should exist are ones asking if any of the women in her division can beat the champ, the same way it was asked if any of the men could beat Brock Lesnar when he was champion. His accomplishments were judged on the merit of what he achieved, not on some silly hypotheticals. But even when men become champions, fans’ hypotheticals center on what would happen if they were pitted against a belt-holder in a different class or from a different era; they’re not dismissed because those hypotheticals can’t happen.
Instead, that resistance is routine when it comes to female athletes.That’s why Serena Williams laughed it off when she was bombarded with the same nonsense in 2013.
In June of that year, in the first week of the Wimbledon tournament, Andy Murray jokingly challenged Williams to a match. She laughed it off. Jeff Tarango didn’t. He instead got his Ian McCall on:
”Maybe if they found a handicapping system. I’m sure Andy could come up with something, maybe redraw the lines a little bit...
”Let’s go to the depth of it. What they’re asking is, ‘How low do you have to go in the men’s game before Serena pulls off a win?’.
“I’m going to say 300-350, those guys aren’t used to playing for $500,000, they might start getting a little nervous and I think on a good surface on a good day, she could maybe take someone out.”
Serena was on a 34-match winning streak against her peers and yet some people suggested that she would need to play a college freshman before she could pull off a win against a guy. That conversation placed her back in an odd predicament: entirely too powerful and too good to compete against women, but without the respect handed to men. It’s misogyny in the guise of innocent speculation. The underlying belief being that these women are not elite, but instead compete at an inferior version of the same sport as their male counterparts.
The suggestion is bullshit. If the male ego stops stroking itself for a second, it would realize the absurdity of it. Ronda Rousey could very well submit a male fighter with an armbar. Serena Williams could also possibly beat a male tennis player, as Billie Jean King did before her. And just as Mo’Ne Davis has done on the baseball diamond.
Except, they don’t need to. Their accomplishments stand on their own. Even if one sees them as ridiculously ahead of their competition, it’s not an invitation to devalue their field. It’s tempting, but it’s wrong. These women are good because they are good. They don’t have to beat a man before we can accept that fact.
So it was almost perfect that Ronda Rousey would flip Triple H out the ring at Wrestlemania rather than Stephanie McMahon. That’s the only realm where that type of fight should be entertained: at a fake wrestling event known for its comedy and absurdity.
★★★
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