Turn on a TV or check out social media and you?re bound to see the wonderful and awesome Ronda Rousey being wonderful and awesome in one strategically-placed public relations story after another.
Did you know that Rousey is aiming to ?take down? body-shamers in the pursuit of positive body image for women? Or that she?s openly, gushingly embracing the UFC?s drug testing policy? Or that she hates Justin Bieber now for being rude to her little sister? Or how about her viral-certified ?date? to the Marine Corps Ball with an active, on-duty Marine who knows that Rousey has a boyfriend, and that he must be a ?great guy? because Rousey is such a ?great woman with an amazing personality.? Blah, Blah, Blah?Puke, Puke, Puke?The only thing missing from a picture-perfect Public Relations for the New Millennium dossier is a campaign to save rescue kittens and a first-hand gunboat battle with Somali pirates.
In the faker than fake world of political correctness, all you really need is a figurehead around which you can build an empire of fluff. And, in the world of combat, the UFC?s supreme female butt-kicker, Ronda Rousey, is that perfect figurehead.
Look at her being a woman. Look at her being an empowered woman. Look at her being the scourge of all things not PC. Now, buy her thrice-yearly pay-per-views.
Her constant picking and pawing at serial lout, boxer Floyd Mayweather, has been an especially shameless shortcut to gushing ?You go, girl? headlines in the mainstream media. The UFC has had a long history of using the worst of boxing to promote themselves, with company president Dana White usually being the one to do the hardcore shilling for his company. However, with Rousey, the UFC hype machine has created the perfect untouchable source of positive spin for its product. Picking on the plucky warrior blonde and calling into question the convenient ?perfectness? of the hype job behind her is like throwing yourself into the whirling blades of a gigantic PC thrashing machine.
When Rousey edged out Mayweather at this year?s ESPY awards for Best Fighter, her ?How does it feel to be beaten by a woman? slam at convicted batterer Mayweather was a home run moment for her and her company.
But Rousey?s smiling ?Girl Power? smugness was an empty gesture, considering that her own company still features big-titted ring card girls shaking their behinds between rounds and had been notoriously dismissive of female fighters?until they found the right one they could actually exploit in Rousey.
The undefeated bantamweight champ has also palled around with Mike Tyson on a number of occasions, routinely expressing her open admiration for the convicted rapist and accused batterer.
And to make her anti-misogyny stance even more dubious, Rousey is dating UFC fighter Travis Browne, who has legal issues still pending with regards to claims that he physically assaulted his estranged wife Jenna Renee Webb. Not surprisingly, a UFC-funded private investigation into the matter ruled that evidence of domestic abuse was ?inconclusive? against the UFC top 5 ranked heavyweight. Conveniently, the inconclusive finding was just enough to avoid a hands-tied firing of Browne per the UFC?s Code of Conduct Policy. Keeping Browne around also, presumably, would keep training partner and girlfriend, Rousey, happy while the company keeps milking her as one of the few cash cows they have left these days.
It?s quite possible that Rousey?s fixation on Mayweather is more about the boxer?s arrogant insistence that he doesn?t know who Rousey is?a declaration she brings up when railing against the now-retired boxing cash cow more often than his domestic abuse record. How dare anyone not know who Ronda Rousey is in this day and age of her being crammed into every element of pop culture, from burger commercials to pro wrestling to daytime talk shows.
Sure, it?s possible that Rousey is just naturally this awesome creature of politically correct benevolence. Maybe her boyfriend is fully innocent of domestic abuse allegations and maybe Tyson won her friendship and admiration because he had, in her eyes, a legitimate change of heart and soul.
It?s also possible that she?s full of crap.
In the octagon, Rousey is 100% for real, even if a very weak and underdeveloped UFC women?s division has her mostly beating up on female self-defense instructors, personal trainers, and gym matrons. Once she steps away from combat, though, she becomes a walking press release, a creature forged by a most foul union between William Morris and Satan, himself. So calculated ?right? that it comes across as phony and contrived.
It?s time for Rousey and the puppet master marketing geniuses behind her to step back a bit and give us a breather from the non-stop pandering and calculated ?look how awesome I am? narratives. We get it, you?re swell?Now go away until it?s time to fight.
