Ronda Rousey said Holly Holm wouldn’t want her life.
It was never easy being Rousey. The UFC’s brightest star lived in the constant glare of the spotlight. Leading up to her fight against Holm, she implied the low-key former women’s boxing champion wouldn’t thrive under the pressure, the press obligations or the litany of distractions.
"The life of a champion, I think isn't for everybody ...," Rousey said, via MMA Fighting's Marc Raimondi. "I think this kind of environment isn't what Holly would like. I hope that she takes the money that she gets for losing and has a great life that she would like a lot more than this one."
Maybe Rousey’s concern was misplaced.
So far, Holm seems to be doing OK living the life of a champion.
In the two-plus weeks since she shocked the MMA establishment by taking Rousey’s women’s bantamweight title via head-kick knockout at UFC 193, we’ve gotten a taste of what kind of champ Holm will be.
So far, so good.
She may never prove to be the media juggernaut that Rousey was but—then again—who would? In her own way, Holm has already proved capable of handling more media attention than your average UFC champion, and so far the mainstream seems surprisingly ready to embrace her.
She slipped easily into a bevy of television appearances UFC brass probably thought were for Rousey when it booked them. In the days following her victory, Holm did Good Morning America, The Talk, Late night with Seth Myers, made a deluge of ESPN appearances and did an interview with Larry King, among others.
She got introduced (awkwardly, to hear her tell it) to Jay-Z and Beyonce. She even posed for a picture with Floyd Mayweather, one of Rousey’s chief adversaries throughout 2015. On November 30, GQ Magazine ran a feature interview dubbing Holm "the quiet UFC champ who dethroned Ronda Rousey."
She managed it all without the former champ’s superstar charisma but brought her own laid-back affability to the proceedings. You get the distinct impression people are going to like Holm. She’s the kind of champion that is going to be everybody’s friend.
In other words, she’s pretty much the anti-Rousey.
Throughout her tenure as UFC champion, Rousey’s public persona was typified by intensity. She was always a good and honest interview subject, but she didn’t spare anyone’s feelings. She treated her opponents like interchangeable pawns because that’s exactly what they were. She moved with the confidence of knowing the 135-pound women’s division was her own personal playground. Why wouldn’t she? The UFC set it up just for her.
In those ways, Rousey wasn’t so different from the dominant combat sports champions of the past. It was our reaction to her that perhaps set her apart.
We seemed to love her when she was winning. We marveled at her judo skills and her brazen attitude. Movie stars tweeted superlatives about her, little girls dressed as her for Halloween and the UFC invested millions—as well as no small amount of hyperbole—building her into a bad-girl icon for the 21st century.
Then she lost and all that goodwill seemed to blow up in her face.
Clearly, Rousey’s personality was the primary driver behind the ugly and unfair recent backlash against her. All of the nastiness directed toward her after getting knocked out by Holm raised legitimate questions about why people were tuning in to watch her fight in the first place.
The only thing we know for sure is that they tuned in in massive numbers.
Now we have Holm, a legitimately nice person and inspiring athlete attempting to run with the baton she knocked from Rousey’s grasp. There’s simply no way to know how that’s going to go. It’s obviously going to take some time to discover if Holm’s good-natured charm will be enough to get Rousey Nation to switch its allegiance.
The pair’s first meeting was reportedly one of the UFC’s best selling pay-per-views ever. Early estimates say more than a million pairs of eyeballs tuned in to watch Holm send Rousey crashing to the canvas in an unconscious heap. Did they like what they saw?
The rematch is expected—maybe necessary—and will no doubt do big business as well. It seems a perfect fit to headline the gala UFC 200 PPV scheduled for July 16, 2016. Assuming Rousey will be ready and willing by then.
I wasn't going to Tweet during Thanksgiving lunch, but me, my uncle, and my 85+ y/o granddad are talking about Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey.
— Suzanne Davis (@SoozieCuzie) November 26, 2015
Smart money says the UFC won’t let Holm fight before that. The organization won’t want to take the chance she might drop the belt to somebody else in Rousey’s absence. It won’t want to take the chance that any of Holm’s momentum stalls if, even in victory, she turns in the sort of lackluster performances we saw during her first two Octagon appearances.
For Holm that puts her fledgling title reign on somewhat awkward footing. She’s already said she’d rather stay busy and fight again if Rousey is going to be AWOL for an extended period of time. If the UFC is unwilling to risk it, then she’ll have to maintain our attention from the sideline. A tougher trick than it sounds.
Perhaps the stiffest test for the new champion won’t come until she’s tasked with convincing fans to watch her fight someone besides Rousey. Holm’s appeal is certainly different—both in terms of personality and fighting style. She’s going to have to ask fans to accept a new kind of women’s champion. She’s going to demand the UFC changes the way it has promoted that division.
To date, though, Holm seems to be a natural.
Last week she even went to bat for an unexpected person in the wake of her victory—telling critics to back off Rousey.
"I think people can be pretty brutal," Holm told TMZ Sports, "and when you're in the spot she’s in, there are people that are just going to jump ship and I don't ever wish for that … I have a lot of respect for her."
In the early days of Holm’s reign over the UFC, it's starting to seem like maybe we were worried for the wrong person.
