If there were any doubts that Ronda Jean Rousey is the Ultimate Fighting Championship's biggest star (and perhaps its biggest-ever star), those notions were dispelled on Sunday.
As you may have heard by now, Rousey jumped the railing at WrestleMania and, side by side with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, appeared to set up a tag team match for next year's WrestleMania in Dallas: Rousey and The Rock vs. the real-life husband-and-wife power duo of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Paul Levesque (Triple H's real name) and his wife are the future operators of World Wrestling Entertainment (provided Vince McMahon is not, in fact, immortal).
Already their fingerprints are being felt on the product, Rousey included. Even one year ago, the idea of a UFC champion being involved in what was essentially one of the two biggest angles on the WWE's biggest and most prideful show of the year was an unthinkable one.
But Rousey has reached a plateau that few, if any, UFC stars have ever reached.
She is a raging success in her own sport and might be the UFC's biggest pay-per-view draw. She is on the silver screen. She appears effortless on morning talk shows, charming hosts and viewers alike. She is the perfect billboard for advertisers seeking a total badass with a touch of elegance and class.
Her appearance at WrestleMania perfectly illustrates her popularity. Popular mixed martial artists have appeared on wrestling programs in the past. The usual response from wrestling fans is something along the lines of: Who is that person, and why is he here? Either that or almost total indifference, which is not the reaction the company was going for.
But not Rousey. When The Rock began walking toward Rousey's ringside seat, the sound of the crowd at Levi's Stadium totally changed. There was a buzz. And then it began, slowly, but picking up steam quickly as the audience realized what was about to happen: chants of "Ronda Rousey."
And then Rock turned and smiled at Rousey, and she jumped over the railing, and the crowd went ballistic. Over the course of the next five minutes, one of the more surprising (and memorable) moments in WrestleMania history would unfold. This wasn't a wrestling crowd who was indifferent to Rousey. They all knew exactly who she was. They knew exactly what she was there for. And they knew exactly what they wanted to see: Rousey putting her signature armbar on McMahon.
Instead, we got something of a build for what will almost assuredly be a feature bout on next year's WrestleMania in Dallas. The promotion has a big stadium to fill. There are a lot of seats in Cowboys Stadium, and it'll be gunning for its all-time attendance record.
So Rousey did not armbar McMahon; instead, she hip-tossed Triple H (who do you think would win in a fight between Rousey and a Triple H?) and then used the same sort of armlock Jon Jones used on Glover Teixeira to dispose of McMahon. A moment was created, and the foundation for a future moment was poured out like cement.
And what of this? The fact that Rousey was the linchpin to all of this and not Johnson—one of Hollywood's biggest stars and a complete returning hero to all wrestling fans—absolutely revealed just how big of a star she has become.
Rousey has utterly transcended the UFC. She is not the world's biggest action-film star. Not yet, anyway. But she has nearly reached the threshold of being called a household name.
I tend to use my mother as a metric when determining how well-known a fighter is with non-fans, because my mother cannot stand violence and wouldn't watch a mixed martial arts fight if you forced her to. But she knows who Ronda Rousey is, and she likes her, and she'll ask me from time to time about her upcoming fight, even though she has no intention of watching it.
If you pass the Mom test, you're a star. If you make 76,000 people in Levi's Stadium stand up and cheer your name, you're a star.
We already knew Rousey was the UFC's biggest star. We just didn't know by how much. But now, we have that answer: Nobody else is close. And she might just be the biggest star in the history of mixed martial arts, and that includes human money-making machine Brock Lesnar. Lesnar drew millions of wrestling fans to the UFC.
Rousey will pull mixed martial arts fans to the WWE. But she'll also have something of a reverse effect, bringing back the wrestling fans she gains in WWE back to the UFC.
And if she continues doing both, dabbling in wrestling while continuing to crush her competition with ease in the UFC, by the time next year's WrestleMania is over, there will be no doubt who is the biggest star in the history of mixed martial arts.
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