Ronda Rousey on ‘SNL’ was Kinda Funny, Kinda Awkward, Not Worth Watching Live

I used to love “Saturday Night Live.” It was symbolic of my freedom when I was a kid, being allowed by my parents to stay up late because I didn’t have to get up early for school the next day. Nothing else was on TV late at night, so “SNL” became to the go-to entertainment experience. It was wild.

But as I got older, I realized something; the show began to become awkward and the jokes didn’t make me laugh much anymore. Was it the writing? Turns out the answer was yes, but I was then at an age when 1) I still didn’t fully understand it and 2) discovered that spending Saturday nights with girls was a lot more entertaining. It was REALLY wild.

So here I am 20-something years (aging myself) later, attempting to watch “SNL” again, this time because Ronda Rousey is a mainstream-media darling and she’s hosting the show. Full disclosure, I tried to set it on my DVR, but I apparently can’t figure out how to properly use the app on my damn phone to record the thing. Technology, man. I thought I programmed it correctly but ended up feeling like my 76-year-old father trying to figure out what the point of “the Twitter.” YouTube footage will have to do.

Based on what the internet could provide me, Rousey’s appearance on the show was minimal. From a short stint as a reality show contestant in the “Bland Man” sketch to a semi-awkward role of playing a teacher accused of a sexual relationship with a minor, Rousey didn’t do or say much.

Her monologue, however, produced a quote the main page of our website would like. Rousey congratulated Holly Holm for beating her up.

“This is the first time I’m talking to my fans since I lost to Holly Holm in November, which, by the way, was a fight Holly deserved to win,” the former UFC women’s champ monologued, adding, “and I just wanted to take a minute to sincerely congratulate her.”

Bravo

It wasn’t the worst monologue ever, even though the announcer slightly pronounced her name to make it sound like “Randa Razzi.” Rough start, guy.

Rousey is not a comedian. That being the case, I didn’t expect much from her in terms of “LOL, OMG, she nailed” moments. And, quite honestly, if you’re expecting that kind of thing you need to get slapped in the face with reality because, again, she isn’t a comedian. But then again, is Joe Rogan a comedian? ZING.

The bit with Rousey having a coach instruct her between rounds of the monologue was mildly funny, but it would’ve been much more appealing to MMA fans if it had been written by the person who authors the Eddie Tarverdyan parody Twitter account.

So I’m being played by a black guy and not an Armenien? #SNL continues their disgusting racism.

— Edmund Tarverdyan (@EddieTarverdyan) January 24, 2016

Ronda’s skills in order of mastery. 1.Comedic timing 2.Boxing 3.Judo

— Edmund Tarverdyan (@EddieTarverdyan) January 24, 2016

Sprinkle on one of the cast members playing Justin Bieber getting slapped in the face, followed by Selena Gomez coming to the rescue with a short number and we’re onto the show.

The majority of Rousey’s acting chops flexed their muscles in a sketch called “Love Struck.” At this point I told myself, “OK, here’s her chance to really show what she can do and have me forget her horrible accent from ‘Fast and Furious 7.’ Good God, that accent was horrible. What the hell was she supposed to be? Albanian? Chinese? I genuinely can’t tell. Also, Vin Diesel mumbles a lot.”

After getting lost in my own frustration for a bit, I had to click back on the YouTube page to watch what I missed.

The sketch starts out believable enough with Rousey being escorted into a high school gym by her longtime crush. As it turns out, the boy’s in on a prank by some mean girl types who want to embarrass Ronda’s character. Wrong move, apparently.

To the footage!

Typical Rousey

Beyond a few reactionary lines, there’s barely anything the fighter-turned-actor said that allows her to show anything as an onscreen performer. The skit was written out to have her do the same thing seemingly every fighter in front of a camera does: fight. Note to the writers on the show, everybody’s already seen her fight in real life. Why would we want to watch her fight on a show centered around sketch comedy? Can we maybe see what she can do with some well-written scripts? Oh, I forgot we’re dealing with “SNL” writers. My bad. You do you.

Nothing on the show delivered anything close to displaying Rousey’s true potential as an actor. We still don’t know what it is, and, at this point, I doubt it’s worth thinking too hard about when Lady Gaga is winning Golden Globes for her horrible performance on “American Horror Story.” Can you believe that s**t?! She was awarded for THAT. Really.

Turns out not knowing how to program my DVR from my phone wasn’t a big deal because there wasn’t much to record of Rousey’s performance. Next-morning web surfing sounds more attractive than staying up late at night to watch a past-its-prime show that advertised a UFC fighter being featured, but ultimately didn’t feature her much.

Rousey still has some opportunities to do some big things in Hollywood. While the jury’s still out on her ability to carry film, she still draws eyeballs because of who she is and that will keep her in frame for at least the immediate future. But as she stays there, people will criticize and she’ll have to deal with all kinds of heat, both justified and unjustified.

And when criticism is thrown, it will sometimes come along as well-composed as this tweet that someone obviously wrote for Cris Cyborg.

Watching #SNL and it looks like @rondarousey still needs help on her standup

— Cris Cyborg (@criscyborg) January 24, 2016

Expert-level shade, y’all.

Follow Erik Fontanez on Twitter: @Nahmles