Is there a fight in here somewhere, or did I hallucinate that?
It turns out that, magically, it was not just a dream. Ronda Rousey is, indeed, an MMA fighter, and she will indeed fight. In fact, it's happening Saturday against Holly Holm at UFC 193 in Australia.
It's OK if you forgot. A lot of people forgot, or maybe never knew to begin with. At this point, Rousey is the most famous MMA fighter to ever live, and her celebrity is self-perpetuating like some futuristic power cell.
Sometimes, like in the weeks Rousey spent leading up to UFC 193, such power bursts out of its harness and becomes unpredictable. It's not Rousey's fault—she's just answering questions. It's not even the media's fault—they're just giving the people what they want. It's everyone's fault. It's nobody's fault. It's a head-scratcher.
Mass Media 101 discussion questions aside, it's plenty evident the hype cycle for this fight took on a life of its own, culminating in a journalistic theater of the absurd that eventually obfuscated its own purpose, like David Copperfield misdirecting himself mid-trick.
It started with sheer volume. How many inches and pixels were dedicated to Rousey? How many helium atoms are in the sun? She appeared on the cover of Ring magazine. She appeared on the cover of Self. She appeared on the cover of Men's Fitness. She appears on the cover of the video game UFC 2.
In the primordial soup of "Hey, Ronda Rousey is a female fighter!" and "Hey, Ronda Rousey has blonde hair!" features, a powerful new strain took form: Rousey gossip hit fever pitch, as did random questions (worthy or otherwise) aimed at learning more about Inner Ronda. Every little thing became a Thing.
Can Rousey beat Floyd Mayweather Jr.?
Can Rousey beat WWE superstars? Follow up: Which ones can she beat? (Answer: all of them.)
Rousey gets her post-victory hot wings flown in by a private chef.
Ronda, what's your favorite Halloween costume?
Do you think Ronda Rousey could beat a three-legged horse in a cupcake bake-off?
We even got a new vocabulary term out of the deal: "lube shaming," a phrase that may or may not fit perfectly into your next Mass Media 101 lecture.
We got stories about her romantic life, of her dating fellow UFC fighter Travis Browne. We got a fresh round of stories on Browne's alleged domestic abuse. We got a fresh round of stories on Rousey's alleged domestic abuse.
We got the alleged hang-up during a media conference call earlier in November, which happened to occur right after Rousey was asked about her relationship with Browne and she blamed on a dead phone, per USA Today.
We got fresh gossip copy on Rousey and Mayweather. (Hint: Someone—he may be an alleged domestic abuser—didn't care much for a certain someone's appearance on the cover of Ring magazine.
And on and on it went. And on and on and on and on. At the UFC 193 weigh-ins on Friday, we got a scuffle with Holm, and a strange interview after with emcee and UFC broadcaster Joe Rogan.
A very heated Ronda Rousey being interviewed by @JoeRogan UFC 193 here we go http://pic.twitter.com/tV2feKEfD2
— MMA History Today (@MMAHistoryToday) November 13, 2015
That was followed by a Rousey rant on Instagram. Was it all premeditated?
You get the idea. Tally it all up and you get probably the most intense stretch of media scrutiny to occur in MMA history. Her fight on Saturday, in which Rousey is an overwhelming favorite to retain her UFC women's bantamweight title, will probably end up a convenient dessert topping, or even an afterthought, to the process. The sausage is made. Now we just need the casing.
One final media report sums it up. Rousey told the media she'd like to "disappear" from the media for a while after UFC 193, per Rolling Stone, given the intense media focus. She'll just lay back and make movies for a while.
Makes sense. After all this, she certainly understands drama.
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