When Ronda defeated a very dangerous challenger in Bicth Coheya she was on every news program program possible, even ones outside of the sporting world such as Huffpost Women and The View. She became a cross over star the likes of Michael Jordan. However yesterday Bolt defeated Gatlin who has been running the fastest times all year and has been a known steroid abuser in the past. The race was very important since it was about keeping the integrity of the sport by having it's top star be moral. Yet such a great story was hardly covered outside sports. Is this proof that Ronda has indeed become the megastar MMA was waiting on?
Bare in mind Bolt beat an American drugs cheat and track and field generally isn't massively popular in the US, world wide Bolt is a much larger star, probably in the top 10 sportspeople.
Ronda is going to be the biggest martial arts superstar that has ever lived. She's well on her way, but she's going to get a lot bigger than she is now.
no, but maybe she will when she'll defeat holy holm and will end the boxing vs mma debate once and for all
sure, man. ronda is more popular than jesus christ. she once armbarred the subject-object dichotomy and squared the circle. she punches people so hard that a new quatum state is born each time.
There are many sport(wo)men who are more popular and more well-known than Rousey. Popular in the US =/= popular in the whole world.
Bolt is one of the most famous people in the world, Ronda is only popular in North America and maybe Brazil.
I think these things vary with geography. I live in the Midwest of the US and travel often. I think most folks know who Usain Bolt is, but very few have thought of him since the Olympics. Ronda is far from the top level of sports popularity in the US, but she is on her way and is easily the closest thing to a household name MMA has. In the US I'd wager she is bigger than Usain Bolt and has by no means reached her apex yet. Little old ladies at the salon ask me about her all the time. Really.
Of course being less popular that Bolt doesn't mean your not popular and Rousey is probably the best known MMA fighter ever, maybe Brock in the past or Kid/Saku/Yoshida/Genki although whilst they were perhaps bigger households names in Japan they didn't have world wild fame. Rousey is also I'd say riding multiple lines of hype as well beyond being a good fighter and a good media personality. She's the figurehead of womens MMA which is the first womens fightsport ever to get serious popularity in the west, this makes covering her much more of a socio-political issue rather than just what the media views as meathead guys smashing each other. In terms of looks as well I think she benefits that she's not only attractive(without being an identikit "hot babe") but taps into the "sporty = sexy" shift that's clearly built up in recent years.
