Ronda Rousey skipped the post-fight questions, and Dominick Cruz didn't. Does it matter?

A little more than an hour after he he lost his bantamweight title to the man he spent the previous several weeks beefing with, Dominick Cruz showed up to the UFC 207 post-event press conference in a crisp suit and dark sunglasses to address the media.

He didn’t have to. You get beat up and sliced open in the co-main event of a UFC pay-per-view event, post-fight press is typically an optional deal. But Cruz (22-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) showed up after his loss to Cody Garbrandt (11-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC).

He was gracious and complimentary toward his opponent. He was an insightful analyst, like he usually is, even if this time he was breaking down his own defeat. He offered no excuses. He was the picture of resolve, an unbreakable spirit in a navy suit.

He did his best, he told us. And he lost.

“That’s how it goes,” Cruz said. “We’ve seen the best in the world lose it, and we’ve seen the best in the world gain it back.”

By the time he was finished talking, Ronda Rousey was reportedly already out of the building. She left T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas on Friday night almost as quickly as she left the cage after her first-round TKO loss to UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.

Rousey (12-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) didn’t stick around to be interviewed on the PPV broadcast, which was no surprise. The way she avoided media all week, even the friendly weigh-in interview, told us that the only way we’d hear from her after the fight was if she won, and even that wasn’t guaranteed.

Then she got trucked by Nunes (14-4 MMA, 7-1 UFC) in 48 seconds, which isn’t the kind of experience that makes most people feel any more talkative.

After that, I guess we can’t blame Rousey for bailing any more than we could have blamed Cruz if he’d skipped out on the questions at the end. What’s the point, right? The fight’s done. The PPVs have all been sold, and the checks have been signed. Why stand around so a bunch of people can ask you why you let yourself get punched in the face so much?

But then you see Cruz handling his loss with resilient dignity, and you start to feel like maybe this part matters too. It definitely has the power to affect how people think about him. And it can work the same way in the opposite direction.

Rousey took her share of criticism for skipping pre-fight media, and she’ll take more still for running off after the fact. The question is why anyone cares.

Is it because we see it as a sign of her fragile mental state? Do people feel like they’re owed something after they paid their money and watched her fight?

Maybe it’s something else. The famed fight trainer Greg Jackson once said that despite the grisly surface appeal of the weekly human carnage of MMA, what people are really getting out of it is inspiration. It’s a living morality play, not unlike what gladiator games were to ancient Romans. Sure, some people were just there for the blood and the free bread, but to others it was a living lesson in how to live and die well – or not.

On a much smaller level, maybe that’s what’s going on with the post-fight drama. It’s easy to show up and smile for the cameras when you win. When you do it after a loss, you tell us something about yourself.

Cruz sure did. Same with Miesha Tate, who showed up after losing her title to Nunes at UFC 200 and talked through the ice pack on her nose. Same with Conor McGregor, who had about as public humiliation as you can endure when Nate Diaz submitted him at UFC 196, but still showed up to tell us that he was going to learn and grow and come back better, all of which he did.

Rousey? She took her loss and her money, and she went home. The next day she issued a bland statement thanking her fans, who got to decide for themselves whether she actually wrote it and whether they actually cared.

She took the safe route, in other words. The path that guarded her psyche and ego. The path that probably felt a lot easier than ripping open those raw nerves in full public view.

That’s another way of telling us something about yourself. You just might not always like how the message comes out on the other end.

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