but chael for example is a "cool heel," similar to what tito tried to be only far funnier. similar to stone cold steve austin. it was "cool" to like him. i simply don't think ronda comes off as a "cool heel." in large part because meisha is playing her role perfectly as the cool baby face chick who is trying to stay above all the bs ronda is throwing out. ronda comes off lame. like, i'd want to have a beer with chael, or stone cold. but ronda? not so much.
of course dana wants the drama because it puts asses in seats, but the problem here is, ronda is going to win, she's the face of wmma, so her being an uncool heel, and someone who just comes off as a bad person, thats not good branding. and she's the one he has to promote moving forward because she's the best in the world. i don't see anyone beating her anytime soon.
Cool heel is kind of relative. Some people might like the passion they think she is displaying. I'm not saying she doesn't appear to be really unbalanced this season, but others might interpret it differently.
I wouldn't worry too much about branding. Like I said, the UFC or even that fighter themselves, can flip their image easily.
If Ronda beats Miesha she will be called passionate, a rebel, etc. by the UFC. The details of how she really acted will be brushed aside.
Sure, some of her detractors might bring this up. She might have lost some fans, but the MMA fan is a fickle sort. An active, winning fighter can quickly garner support. Ronda isn't extremely active, but I think that will honestly work to her favor in this time.
It will give the fans plenty of time to forgive and/or forget. While giving the UFC plenty of time to build her up as a face. Two fights after Miesha and she will be loved again.
Rampage acted pretty terrible as a coach; how many fans did he lose? Granted, he was an old Pride star, but he was exciting.
I could be wrong, but that is how I see this situation going. Dana throwing fuel on the fire, they will fight, Ronda will win, and Miesha will turn into lady Faber. Caught in a no title shot purgatory.
You might argue that Dana is trying to protect Ronda do to the picture incident. However, I see it as him adding hype.
He was adding to that impassioned tag line they plan to introduce to Ronda. As well as making people think that the pictures were horrible and he had to rip them down to prevent a war.
They are going to tell the casual fans Dana had to rip down these offensive pictures, blah blah.
The pictures weren't that bad; they probably told the fighters to talk about Edmond like he was gone for a long time, or even cut and pasted that from another part they cut out completely.
It looks like another marketing job to me. I mean honestly, do we think Dana actually ripped all those pictures down himself? If he was really worried about it he would have had some intern doing it for him.
